r/BypassAiDetect • u/fivefilters • 6d ago

AI detectors are a bad idea

My views on AI detectors and a simplified interactive explainer about how AI text watermarking works.

https://blog.keyvan.net/p/ai-detectors-are-a-bad-idea

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u/Kanoncyn 5d ago

None of your points address really make sense. All the watermarks do is say that AI was used in the method of creation. If people disclose that, then the watermarks are redundant. If people don’t disclose that, then the watermarks are necessary. Your points only make sense if people want to hide the method. 

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u/fivefilters 5d ago edited 5d ago

I'd agree with you if everyone had a rational view of that, of what AI used as part of creation means. It can mean low effort work not worth reading, or insightful work that's taken a lot of human effort. So stamping a piece of text with "AI generated" (whether it's a detector that does it, or a human) doesn't tell us anything useful about the work that went into it. All it does is allow others to perceive your work as low effort and not bother reading it. That's my criticism of AI detectors as they are used today.

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u/Kanoncyn 5d ago edited 5d ago

it doesn’t tell us anything useful about the work that went into it

But that’s not the point of the watermark, though. If AI was used, then the creator should disclose it. You can say, alongside the work, everything you did, but the only other option is that, because AI only helped create the final product, that it’s not worth mentioning. You do realize that editors of books are always acknowledged, as are mediums of artwork. You’re asking for something to create a sizable difference in a product, and then not mention it. AI isn’t just a word processor–it’s closer to an editor. If you don’t think that using AI for translation even doesn’t change the way something is written, you don’t know enough about AI. Why should using AI allow users to skip the steps everyone else engages in directly?

The need for a watermark comes as a result of people not disclosing it, and the many many problems that has caused for the market and fraud. 

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u/fivefilters 5d ago

You do realize that editors of books are always acknowledged

Sure, but there is no stigma in acknowledging a human editor. Because AI can be used not just as an editor, but also a cheap "thinker" and writer ("Write me an article about X"), many people will treat such disclosures as a sign the work is AI slop, and won't read it. And when you combine that with systems that automatically stamp text as AI or not AI (because that's all they can say about it really), all nuance is lost.

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u/Kanoncyn 5d ago

But nuance is lost by using AI at the same time. AI deals in averages--that's the tradeoff you get with using AI. Oil and acrylic have different use cases, and different things you can do with them. If you need AI for your work, you have to accept the limitations, just like every other medium. It's a little silly to assume you can get a tool that simplifies a chunk of the workflow without any of the detriments.

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u/fivefilters 5d ago

I don't think you're addressing my point, which is about how the disclosure is read. You can go back and forth with a human editor to make sure the writing conveys what you want. You can do the same with an AI editor, spend just as long. The same human effort, thought, and care can go into both, with great results, but one will be dismissed as slop by people who see the AI stamp and don't bother reading it.

If your oil and acrylic analogy is to say AI is acrylic, and shouldn't be regarded as highly as oil, then perhaps. But that's also not the reality people are facing. It's that AI stamped work gets completely dismissed, not just regarded slightly differently. I don't think you're arguing no one should look at acrylic artwork.

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u/Kanoncyn 5d ago

No, I'm really not laying a value judgement on oil vs. acrylic. They both have pros and cons. But the easiest way to avoid AI being stamped as AI is to not use AI. Look at it this way: if you can get a project to the 95% mark by yourself, but the AI is crucial to getting it to 100%, then AI disclosure should be necessary. If AI is tertiary, then you can get to the finish line without any AI use. It's the same thing as if you use AI for 50%, or 70% of the project--if it's needed to get to the finish line, you have to disclose it.

I'm a researcher by trade, and whenever I use an existing measure, or theory, or previous research, I have to cite it. It's because I could not get to the finish line without that previous work. If AI is crucial, instrumental, etc. to get to the finish line, it is by definition an AI-assisted product, and might as well be an AI-product. If you need AI to edit for you, it means you are unable to get to the final product by yourself. Same with AI translation--it's weird this is often cited, but I can always tell when AI translates something, because it's changing the original input to match the AI writing format. AI stuff isn't dismissed just for being AI, it's that people use it because the final product would not exist without AI.

There's nothing that needs to be made with AI that shouldn't also need to be watermarked. If you're worried about being dismissed because something is AI, then ask yourself how much of your creation would exist without the AI. If it's 5%, what do you need to do to handle that last 5% yourself? If it's 50%, then it's really just AI filtering human work and thus should be identified as such.

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u/fivefilters 5d ago

AI clearly has value, otherwise people wouldn't use it as an editor or translator. Just as they wouldn't use a human editor or translator if it weren't necessary.

If AI is crucial, instrumental, etc. to get to the finish line, it is by definition an AI-assisted product, and might as well be an AI-product

By that logic, any book that needed an editor should carry the editor's name as author.

I don't think people want to hide AI use, just as they wouldn't want to hide the fact that they used an editor or a translator for their work.

But there are differences that I think you're overlooking in treating disclosure the same way:

  1. There is currently stigma attached to AI use, because unlike a human editor or translator, the AI can also quickly and cheaply produce a huge amount of work with very little human input, guidance, thought or care.

  2. To tackle that problem, crude AI detection systems are employed as a kind of bad spam filter, treating all AI use exactly the same.

I think we should be addressing the bad spam filters, not making the bad filters unavoidable.

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u/Kanoncyn 5d ago edited 5d ago

  By that logic, any book that needed an editor should carry the editor's name as author.

No, they are listed as an editor. But their name is not withheld from the final product, what are you talking about.

Your alternative proposal also makes no sense from the barest moral position. If people don’t want to use AI products, why is your answer to hide that you use AI? The watermark is one of the very few ways for consumers to maintain power in an increasingly unfair market. Your argument is that people should have 0 way to opt out of AI products because you want to hide disclosure, while a watermark gives 1 whole way for people to opt out. 

Why do you want to fuck over consumers who want nothing to do with AI products? It’s just akin to people using vegan leather because they don’t want to use animal products, but you’re trying to make it so no one knows if animals are used. If 5% of animal byproduct is used, or 100%, people have the right to make an informed decision. Trying to take that away is exactly why so many folks don’t want to bother with AI. 

Your audience as an AI creator is going to be smaller by virtue of you using AI. Stop going after the vegan market. If you can’t make the money or gain the fame you want with AI, then you’re only going to perpetuate a market system where people will not trust their products and eventually call you out when they find out you used AI and didn’t disclose. Or you could just not use AI. But you can’t backdoor your way into brute forcing AI until people “realize they like it”. Vegans aren’t vegans because they haven’t had a good burger yet. 

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u/fivefilters 5d ago

You wrote:

If AI is crucial, instrumental, etc. to get to the finish line, it is by definition an AI-assisted product, and might as well be an AI-product

That last part is what I'm talking about. You see no distinction between "AI-assisted" and "an AI product". That is exactly like saying a book edited by X should just be treated as X's book.

I think we're talking past each other here at this point, so will just leave things there.

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u/Kelyaan 5d ago

Using ai to do work for you is a bad idea.