{"id":246873,"date":"2026-11-08T18:13:29","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T00:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/why-cant-human-editors-identify-ai"},"modified":"2026-11-08T18:13:29","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T00:13:29","slug":"why-cant-human-editors-identify-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/why-cant-human-editors-identify-ai","title":{"rendered":"Why can\u2019t human editors identify AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><iframe title=\"Why can\u2019t human editors identify AI?\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LuiK7jcC1fY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Lately, there\u2019s been a spate of revelations about AI users slipping slop-assisted work past human editors.<\/p>\n<p>First there was <em>Shy Girl<\/em>, the horror novel pulled by its publisher once they realized it had been largely AI-generated. Editors failed to see the slop, and many readers were duped too. Emily Hughes, author of <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9781683694250\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"\"><em>Horror for Weenies<\/em><\/a>, published an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/posts\/mia-culpa-on-shy-153588112\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"\">excellent reflection on<\/a> the deeper issues at play, as well as the personal embarrassment of falling for it. But it\u2019s likely now that all of us have been tricked at some point, and it\u2019s not just because the software is improving. As Hughes wrote, \u201cremember that <em>LLMs write like that because people write like that.\u201d<\/em> In other words, the slop is coming from inside the house.<\/p>\n<p>Then there was more discourse around Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle\u2019s admission on X that she frequently leans on AI software in her writing process. McArdle\u2019s usage struck many (myself included) as being well beyond what\u2019s acceptable for a professional writer. AI has been integrated into so many digital processes that keeping writing completely clean may be actually impossible. And even AI skeptics will give a pass to using software for some of our most thankless chores. But McArdle goes much farther than this, using digital tools to generate pushback on my column thesis, suggest trims when I\u2019m over my word count, sharpen podcast interview questions, and perform a final fact check on columns and editorials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lately, there\u2019s been a spate of revelations about AI users slipping slop-assisted work past human editors. First there was Shy Girl, the horror novel pulled by its publisher once they realized it had been largely AI-generated. Editors failed to see the slop, and many readers were duped too. Emily Hughes, author of Horror for Weenies, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}