As AI-generated text continues to evolve, distinguishing it from human-authored content has become increasingly difficult. This study examined whether non-expert readers could reliably differentiate between AI-generated poems and those written by well-known human poets. We conducted two experiments with non-expert poetry readers and found that participants performed below chance levels in identifying AI-generated poems (46.6% accuracy, χ2(1, N = 16,340) = 75.13, p < 0.0001). Notably, participants were more likely to judge AI-generated poems as human-authored than actual human-authored poems (χ2(2, N = 16,340) = 247.04, p < 0.0001). We found that AI-generated poems were rated more favorably in qualities such as rhythm and beauty, and that this contributed to their mistaken identification as human-authored. Our findings suggest that participants employed shared yet flawed heuristics to differentiate AI from human poetry: the simplicity of AI-generated poems may be easier for non-experts to understand, leading them to prefer AI-generated poetry and misinterpret the complexity of human poems as incoherence generated by AI.
  • logos@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    221·
    6 days ago

    Also, it only works when there’s a human weeding out all but the “best” poems.

    …when a human chooses the best AI-generated poem (“human-in-the-loop”) participants cannot distinguish AI-generated poems from human-written poems, but when an AI-generated poem is chosen at random (“human-out-of-the-loop”), participants are able to distinguish AI-generated from human-written poems.