Latest news with #editor
Android Authority
2 days ago
- Android Authority
First look at the biggest Google Photos editor update in years (APK teardown)
TL;DR Google Photos is getting a completely revamped editor, with reorganized sections that make the editing flow much more intuitive. Google previously gave us a glimpse of the new design, but we've managed to dive deeper and unlock the new UI and all the functional changes. The new tool search option is perhaps one of the best new features of the new Google Photos editor. A big update is coming to Google Photos, and it's more than just a fresh coat of paint. Google is set to roll out one of the biggest redesigns the app's built-in editor has seen in years, complete with Material 3 Expressive stylings and a bunch of functional upgrades. We first caught a glimpse of the revamped editor when Google Photos celebrated its 10th anniversary, but we've now managed to dive deeper and unlock the new UI in version 7.34.0.772224975 of the Google Photos app to show you exactly what's coming, including changes that Google hasn't shown off yet. Authority Insights story on Android Authority. Discover You're reading anstory on Android Authority. Discover Authority Insights for more exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage you won't find anywhere else. An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release. Right off the bat, you'll notice that the Material 3 Expressive design elements are everywhere in the revamped Google Photos app. From the soft, rounded corners in the crop tool to the updated shapes for the walkthrough, tiles, and buttons, the whole interface feels more modern, friendly, and in line with Google's new design language. New editing tools layout Once you open the updated Google Photos editor, you'll notice that Google has reorganized all the existing tools into a row of new sections, which now include: Auto Actions Markup Filters Lighting Color To be clear, Google hasn't removed any tools. They've just been restructured and redistributed in the new sections. For example, the Crop tool, along with expanded cropping options, is now found under 'Actions.' Meanwhile, Tone and Color adjustments have been pulled out of the old 'Adjust' section and are now given more prominence as standalone sections at the bottom of the editor. The 'Filters' section is also getting some love. A new 'Sky styles' option lets you choose from dramatic skyline effects like Luminous, Radiant, Vivid, Ember, and more. Google has also made a minor visual tweak to the filter selection tray, making it more intuitive to adjust filter strength. The new 'Auto' section is also a welcome update. While Google had previously previewed this feature, we now have more details on how it works. When you tap Auto, you'll get three enhancement options: Enhance Dynamic AI Enhance This section is also where you'll now find tools like Portrait Blur, Erase, Move, and Reimagine. Previously, these features were tucked away in the Suggestions tab or were only accessible through the Magic Editor. Consolidating them into the 'Auto' section not only makes them easier to find but also makes the editing flow less confusing. The best new Google Photos feature! AssembleDebug / Android Authority Hands down, one of the most helpful new features of the Google Photos editor is the search button. If you're unsure where a specific editing tool is located, type its name, and the search will take you right to it without digging through menus. Given that Google is constantly adding more editing tools to the mix, a search option in Google Photos is the best thing that could have happened to the app. Overall, this Google Photos editor redesign is shaping up to be quite impressive. Google had previously said that the new and improved editor would roll out for Android users sometime in June, so you won't have to wait long to try it out. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
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Vogue
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Vogue
Beauty Editor Shirley Lord Reflects on 60 Years of Friendship with Leonard Lauder
Vogue Contributing Editor Shirley Lord has been a beauty editor and author for almost eight decades, beginning her career on Fleet Street at 17 years old. She was the Beauty Director of American Vogue for 16 years and was close with Leonard Lauder for over half a century. Following his death on June 15th, she wrote a reminiscence for Vogue. I first met Leonard Lauder and his vivacious, adorable wife, Evelyn, in my London home—was it fifty, sixty years ago? Not sure of the date, but certain, as Beauty Director of British Harper's Bazaar and a columnist for London's newspaper, The Evening Standard, none of us dreamed I would cross the pond and eventually become Beauty Director of American Vogue and an American citizen! That evening, so long ago, my two sons were young, and Leonard especially was thrilled they bounced into the sitting room, upsetting the hors d'oeuvres and having a mock (or was it so mock) fight together. 'Just like our kids back home,' he said warmly, relaxing even more into the sofa. Leonard was very much a family man, and that very much included being a model son to his parents, Joe and Estée Lauder. In fact, at the time Joe and Estée had separated, but Joe having heard that little Leonard was battling an infection, had dropped by to visit—and never went home! I didn't comprehend, along with the majority of Lauder fans, that right from the beginning of the Lauder empire, the decision was made between mother and son, that Leonard would run the company completely, building the Estée Lauder name while his mother would represent it. He told me once that he had to make it clear to his mother that all business decisions had to be his and there could never be any discussion or certainly any disagreement about it. Leonard introduced brilliant marketing ideas that we take for granted today: 'gift with purchase,' special packaging for Christmas, Easter, spring and summer, seasonal makeup. I remember a cross phone call from Leonard after l'd had lunch with his mother: 'Please don't give my mother any ideas for products! That can throw our year's budget totally in turmoil.' I didn't realize then that for every product, the budget included the cost of the electric light used in the factory to make it. Estée and I became very close, but I never dared to come close to any product suggestions again. Over the years, Leonard came into the Vogue office a few times to talk about the business of cosmetics—not just to the beauty department, but to the whole staff and he asked as many questions as he answered—about how we operated and gathered information. As the Vogue staff concurred, he was so approachable, warm and witty, we all wished he could be our boss or at least one of them!
New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
A.I. Might Take Your Job. Here Are 22 New Ones It Could Give You.
First, a confession: I tried writing this essay with A.I. I started with ChatGPT's 'deep research' mode, asking it to compile a report on what new jobs for humans might be created by the rise of A.I. It asked a few follow-up questions and then set off, returning with a 6,000-word report, broken down by industry. I fed that report into ChatGPT 4o — along with the original assignment memo from my editor and a few other recent industry reports on the future of work — and asked for an article in the style of The New York Times Magazine. It was done within 90 minutes. The article was lively and informative, and while some of its imagined future careers were a bit fanciful (a 'synthetic relationship counselor' apparently will be someone who can step in when you're in love with your A.I.), it also covered an interesting spectrum of plausible jobs and featured some delightful turns of phrase. To the average reader, it likely would have come across as a breezy Sunday read with just enough interesting points to warrant a bit of reflection. So why aren't you reading that version? Well, for starters, it would have gotten me fired: Almost all quotes and experts in the article were entirely made up. But I had a deeper, more philosophical concern. Even if the A.I.-written version of this piece was entirely factual, submitting it to my editors would have represented a fundamental misunderstanding of why they hired me. In freelance journalism, as in many fields where the work product is written text, you aren't just being paid for the words you submit. You're being paid to be responsible for them: the facts, the concepts, the fairness, the phrasing. This article is running with my byline, which means that I personally stand behind what you're reading; by the same token, my editor is responsible for hiring me, and so on, a type of responsibility that inherently can't be delegated to a machine. Commentators have become increasingly bleak about the future of human work in an A.I. world. The venture-capitalist investor Chris Sacca recently went on Tim Ferriss's podcast and declared that 'we are super [expletive].' He suggested that computer programmers, lawyers, accountants, marketing copywriters and most other white-collar workers were all doomed. In an email to his staff, Fiverr's chief executive, Micha Kaufman, added designers and salespeople to the list of the soon-to-be-damned. Such laments about A.I. have become common, but rarely do they explore how A.I. gets over the responsibility hurdle I'm describing. It's already clear that A.I. is more than capable of handling many human tasks. But in the real world, our jobs are about much more than the sum of our tasks: They're about contributing our labor to a group of other humans — our bosses and colleagues — who can understand us, interact with us and hold us accountable in ways that don't easily transfer to algorithms. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
7 days ago
- Health
- Forbes
Goodbye, Lumps And Dips—These Are The Best Mattresses That Won't Sag
A mattress with prominent lumps and sags can be a major contributor to aches, pains and sores. The average mattress should last around seven years before it starts to show blatant signs of wear, but beds with poor construction and support may wear out prematurely. The best mattresses that won't sag contain a strong base to provide stability and sturdiness, and are sprinkled with extra features to make you sleep even more comfortably. Our editors chose the Saatva Classic Mattress as the best overall pick, a strong innerspring mattress with a dual-coil design, fluffy pillow top and extra lumbar reinforcements for better spinal alignment. The Saatva Classic Mattress is one of the more supportive and durable beds on the market, alongside ... More beds from Nectar, DreamCloud and Avocado. Of course, multiple factors play into whether or not a mattress starts to sag before its lifespan is over, including your body type and how well you care for your mattress. People also have different needs and preferences, so we offer a list of more editor-approved picks below that appeal to people with back pain, side sleepers, price-conscious shoppers and more. Saatva Type: Hybrid innerspring | Height: 11.5 or 14.5 inches | Firmness: Plush soft, luxury firm, firm | Delivery: Free white-glove delivery (arrives flat) | Trial: 365 nights | Warranty: Lifetime Best for: Cons: The Saatva Classic Mattress is one of the most durable and supportive on the market, with two coil layers in its construction that keep the mattress extra-sturdy. A steel coil layer sits at the base while a pocketed microcoil layer is sandwiched near the top, which helps provide targeted pressure relief and spinal reinforcements. There's also a memory foam slab under the center third of the mattress and a special lumbar spinal wire for even more protection against dips and sags. Sleepers can choose between three different firmness options, but here's how we would break it down. We recommend the plush soft model to side sleepers and the luxury firm or firm to back and stomach sleepers. Our team have tested multiple firmness options, and updates writer Alex Garrett says she feels 'supported and elongated' while lying on this mattress, and it 'provides a nice touch of cushioning around my hips, which I appreciate since I typically prefer a medium to medium-firm bed.' See more in our full Saatva Classic Mattress review. DreamCloud Type: Hybrid | Height: 14 inches | Firmness: Medium-firm | Delivery: Free to 48 states | Trial: 365 nights | Warranty: Lifetime Best for: Cons: Previously known as the 'DreamCloud Premier Rest,' this mattress blends luxurious materials like a thick Euro top, soft cashmere and pressure-relieving memory foam with cooling technology and supportive coils for $1,500 (for a queen). We think it offers a good value for those who want a plush and soft bed, as it's one of the most high-quality mattresses you can get for the money. One of our testers compared this mattress to 'sleeping on a cloud that has structure.' She adds that it has a 'soft, cushy and airy feel' without lacking in the support category. Its supportive coils with reinforced edges help keep the mattress sturdy and lifted, while zoned foam and other comfort materials help cushion your body for an ultra soft feel. We found the DreamCloud Luxe Hybrid is a bit softer than its medium-firm rating, so stomach sleepers should consider a firmer bed. But if you sleep on your side, back or a combination, it's hard to go wrong with a mattress like this that appeals to a wide variety of sleeper and body types. Also check out the best soft mattresses for our editors' favorite tested picks. Nectar Type: Hybrid | Height: 12 inches | Firmness: Medium-firm | Delivery: Free | Trial: 365 nights | Warranty: Lifetime Best for: Cons: The Nectar Hybrid is from the same parent company as the DreamCloud Luxe, Resident Home, but it's on a more affordable tier. It has a doughy and pressure-relieving memory foam feel that's comparable to a Tempur-Pedic Mattress, but it's a fraction of the price. It's made with memory foam comfort layers that contour under your curves without making you feel like you're in a sinkhole, as some other beds made from the same material can. To combat heat retention, the bed's top cover is woven with cooling fibers that help draw heat away from your body. Near the bottom of the mattress sits a system of pocketed steel coils that help keep you and the mattress lifted and protected from premature sagging. With a medium-firm profile, we recommend the Nectar Hybrid to back, stomach and combination sleepers. One tester says, 'Back sleeping is probably the most comfortable position in this bed. It has a good balance of support and cushioning, and my back doesn't feel like it's sinking or floating too high on the surface.' Our testers also found it offers top-notch motion isolation and edge support, which are good benefits for couples who share a mattress. You can read more about our testing experience in our full Nectar Hybrid Mattress review. Leesa Type: Hybrid | Height: 13.5 inches | Firmness: Medium | Delivery: Free | Trial: 100 nights | Warranty: Limited lifetime Best for: Cons: Similar to our best overall choice, the Saatva Classic, the Leesa Legend Chill Hybrid mattress is designed with two layers of coils that make the mattress even more supportive and sturdy. However, it incorporates added features like a cooling cover and even more comfort foam for a more plush and cushioned sleep experience. I tested this mattress for several months before moving on to a new bed to try, but it's one of my favorites among (no exaggeration) 100+ beds. As I noted in my Leesa Legend Chill Mattress review, its coil-heavy design makes it feel more lifted, rather than doughy and marshmallowy like a memory foam pick. However, its plush and airy pillow top with a blend of foams underneath the hood give it the right amount of cushion so it's not overbearing. I found the cover is cool to the touch and it helps regulate temperature, even through a California summer. With a medium (that feels a little firmer than that) profile, I found it's best for stomach, back and combination sleepers. Dedicated side sleepers, especially those under 150 pounds, should consider a plusher pick. Avocado Type: Hybrid | Height: 13.3, 17 or 19 inches | Firmness: Medium, plush, ultra plush | Delivery: Free white-glove delivery | Trial: 365 nights | Warranty: 25 years Best for: Cons: Avocado is the industry leader in organic and eco-friendly bedding, including its mattresses. The Luxury Organic model is one of the brand's softest and most luxurious options that's handcrafted and practically tailored to you as you get to choose its height and firmness profile. It's stacked with a burly 17 layers of premium materials, including organic and natural latex, wool, silk, hemp and cotton, along with thousands of recycled steel coils arranged across seven ergonomic zones for targeted support and durability. Latex foam is more durable than most common mattress materials, and more supportive and breathable. Combined with the ultra-sturdy coils that provide targeted spinal reinforcements and pressure relief, this premium mattress offers comfort that should last over a decade. The standard mattress has a medium feel that's ideal for side and back sleepers, but plush and ultra plush models, which add another four or five inches, are available upgrades if you like an even softer feel. Just keep in mind that you need deep-pocket sheets for mattresses that tall. Nolah Mattress Type: Hybrid | Height: 15 inches | Firmness: Plush, luxury firm, firm | Delivery: Free | Trial: 120 nights | Warranty: Lifetime Best for: Cons: The best mattresses for side sleepers have a soft and cushioned profile that properly gives under the hips and shoulders. Some soft mattresses can collapse under too much pressure in the long-term, but the Nolah Evolution Mattress is a strong, thick and supportive pick that strikes a nice balance between soft but sturdy. Senior mattress and sleep editor Bridget Chapman is predominantly a side sleeper and tested the plush model in her home for over a month. She says, 'The foams cushion my pressure points while on my side and fill in my lumbar region as needed while on my back. There's a little bit of sinkage but not too much. It feels more like cushioning and pressure relief than anything.' Inside the Nolah Evolution is a layer of zoned pocketed coils that are stronger under the lumbar region for enhanced lift. Above the support system is a combination of zoned and breathable foams that serve different purposes in the effort to keep you resting comfortably. The zoned foam provides more targeted relief and aerated foam helps prevent heat retention. Finishing off the mattress is a plush, cozy Euro-top that can be upgraded to feature a GlacioTex cooling cover, which feels cool to the touch. See more about this bed in our full Nolah Evolution Mattress review. Our Forbes Vetted sleep team consists of seasoned editors and writers who have built a robust library of mattress and sleep stories to help you achieve a better night's rest. We also have done extensive mattress testing (including several of the beds above), which has helped create roundups like the best soft mattresses, the best mattresses for heavy people, and the best mattresses for shoulder pain. We considered mattresses from the most top-rated brands in the market and relied on our own tests and expertise in addition to extensive research to make the most educated selections we can. For a mattress to have longevity its materials should be high-end, supportive and durable. Innerspring and hybrid mattresses that contain steel coils in the base are the most optimal because they stand the test of time better than beds with a foam base that lumps and sags under constant pressure. Keep an eye out for quality materials like high-density memory foam and latex for durability and support, but be mindful of the characteristics of these materials. Memory foam is known for its pressure-relieving and hugging feel that slowly responds to weight. It's also great at stopping movement across a mattress, which benefits couples who are easily disturbed by their partner's movements. However, the material has a reputation for retaining heat, so keep an eye out for temperature-regulating materials like a cooling cover or phase-change material. Latex foam is either synthetic or natural. Natural and organic latex is sourced from the sap of a rubber tree and ends up looking like a large, supportive sponge. It's more durable, supportive and breathable than memory foam, and it's also hypoallergenic and antimicrobial. The downside of latex foam is that it can be expensive, especially softer latex foam beds. A mattress is only as good as its foundation, and you can even void a bed's warranty by keeping it on an improper bed frame. Most mattresses nowadays don't need a box spring, including every mattress named on our list. All it needs is a sturdy bed frame; Look for one with slats that aren't spaced too far apart, adjustable bed frames or foundation bed frames. In general, the more you weigh, the more pressure you exert onto a mattress. Over time, certain materials like cheap memory foam and poly foam show wear and lose support if they don't have the right reinforcements. As a result, we recommend that people who weigh over 250 pounds consider a hybrid mattress or a bed designed specifically for plus-size sleepers in mind. Mattresses come in a range of firmness levels from soft to extra firm and everything in between, and some even offer multiple firmness levels. The right choice primarily depends on your sleeping position, as the goal is to maintain a neutral spinal alignment through the whole night. Side sleepers typically need a soft to medium mattress that gives underneath the hips and shoulders. A bed that's too firm presses into the joints, causing aggravation and misalignment. Back and stomach sleepers need a firmer surface that keeps the spine lifted and supported, rather than sagging into a bed's foams. Typically, back sleepers are accommodated best by a medium to firm bed, while stomach sleepers need a medium-firm to firm choice. What Type Of Mattress Holds Up The Longest? A hybrid or innerspring mattress that contains a steel coil base layer lasts longer than a bed that is only made out of foam. The average foam mattress should last around five to seven years maximum, while a hybrid mattress' lifespan is ten years or more. Do All Mattresses Eventually Sag? If you regularly sleep on a mattress, even the ones made with steel coils eventually give in to lumps and sags after a decade or more. Regardless of a bed's warranty, you shouldn't sleep on a mattress longer than 12 years. What Mattress Is Least Likely To Sag? We named the Saatva Classic the best mattress that doesn't sag because it contains two coil layers for maximum strength and support with extra lumbar reinforcements to provide even more lift under the spine.
CNET
12-06-2025
- CNET
This AI Writing Detector Shows Its Work. For Me, It's a Step in the Right Direction
This article was written by an actual, flesh-and-blood human -- me -- but an increasing amount of the text and video content you come across online is not. It's coming from generative AI tools, which have gotten pretty good at creating realistic-sounding text and natural-looking video. So, how do you sort out the human-made from the robotic? The answer is more complicated than that urban legend about the overuse of em-dashes would have you believe. Lots of people write with an (over)abundance of that particular piece of punctuation, as any editor will tell you. The clues may have more to do with the phrasing and the fact that, as with any writer, large language models tend to repeat themselves. That's the logic behind AI-detection programs. The problem is that those systems are often AI-powered themselves, and they provide few details about how they arrived at their assessments. That makes them hard to trust. A new feature from the AI-detection company Copyleaks, called AI Logic, provides more insight into not just whether and how much of something might have been written by AI, but what evidence it's basing that decision on. What results is something that looks a lot like a plagiarism detector, with individual passages highlighted. You can then see whether Copyleaks flagged it because it matched text on a website known to be AI-generated, or if it was a phrase that the company's research has determined is far more likely to appear in AI-produced than human-written text. You don't even necessarily have to seek out a gen AI tool to produce text with one these days. Tech companies like Microsoft and Google are adding AI helpers to workplace apps, but it's even showing up in dating apps. A survey from the Kinsey Institute and Match, which owns Tinder and Hinge, found that 26% of singles were using AI in dating, whether it's to punch up profiles or come up with better lines. AI writing is inescapable, and there are times when you probably want to know whether a person actually wrote what you're reading. This additional information from a Copyleaks-checked text marks a step forward in the search for a way to separate the AI-made from the human-written, but the important element still isn't the software. It takes a human being to look at this data and figure out what's a coincidence and what's concerning. "The idea is really to get to a point where there is no question mark, to provide as much evidence as we can," Copyleaks CEO Alon Yamin told me. A noble sentiment, but I also wanted to see for myself what the AI detector would detect and why. How AI detection works Copyleaks started out by using AI models to identify specific writing styles as a way to detect copyright infringement. When OpenAI's ChatGPT burst on the scene in 2022, the company realized it could use the same models to detect the style of large language models. Yamin called it "AI versus AI," in that models were trained to look for specific factors like the length of sentences, punctuation usage and specific phrases. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) The problem with using AI to detect AI is that large language models are often a "black box" -- they'll produce an output that makes sense, and you know what went into training them, but they don't show their work. Copyleaks' AI Logic function tries to pull back the veil so people have a better sense of what in the copy they're evaluating might actually be AI-written. "What's really important is to have as much transparency around AI models [as possible], even internally," Yamin said. Read more: AI Essentials: 29 Ways to Make Gen AI Work for You, According to Our Experts AI Logic uses two different approaches to identify text potentially written by an LLM. One, called AI Source Match, uses a database of AI-generated content from sources either created in-house by Copyleaks or on AI-produced sites online. This works much like a traditional plagiarism detector. "What we've discovered is that AI content, a lot of the time, if you ask the same question or a similar question over and over again, you'll get similar answers or a similar version of the same answer," Yamin said. The other component, AI Phrases, detects terms and groups of words that Copyleaks' research has determined are far more likely to be used by LLMs than by human writers. In one sample report, Copyleaks identified the phrase "with advancements in technology" as potentially AI-written. Copyleaks' analysis of generated content found that the phrase appeared 125 times per million AI-written documents, compared with just six times per million documents written by people. The question is, does it work? Can Copyleaks spot AI content and explain why? I ran a few documents through Copyleaks to see if AI Logic can identify what I know to be AI-created content, or if it flags human-written content as AI-written. Example: A human-written classic What better way to test an artificial intelligence tool than with a story about artificial intelligence? I asked Copyleaks to test a section of Isaac Asimov's classic 1956 short story The Last Question, about a fictional artificial intelligence tasked with solving a difficult problem. Copyleaks successfully identified it as 100% matched text on the internet and 0% AI-written. Example: Partially AI-written For this example, I asked ChatGPT to add two paragraphs of additional copy to a story I wrote and published earlier in the day. I ran the resulting text -- my original story with the two AI-written paragraphs added at the bottom -- through Copyleaks. Copyleaks successfully identified that 65.8% of this copy matched existing text (because it was literally an article already on the internet), but it didn't pick up anything as being AI-generated. Those two paragraphs ChatGPT just wrote? Flew completely under the radar. Enlarge Image Copyleaks thought everything in this article was written by AI, even though only a few paragraphs were. Screenshot by Jon Reed/CNET I tried again, this time asking Google's Gemini to add some copy to my existing story. Copyleaks again identified that 67.2% of the text matched what was online, but it also reported that 100% of the text may have been AI-generated. Even text I wrote was flagged, with some phrases, like "generative AI model," described as occurring more frequently in AI-written text. Example: Totally AI-written In a test of generative AI's ability to create things that are totally out of touch with reality, I asked it to write a news story as if the Cincinnati Bengals had won the Super Bowl. (In this fictional universe, Cincinnati beat the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 31-17.) When I ran the fake story through Copyleaks, it successfully identified it as entirely AI-written. Enlarge Image Copyleaks' AI Logic quickly realized this story about the Cincinnati Bengals winning the Super Bowl was written by an AI chatbot. Screenshot by Jon Reed/CNET What Copyleaks didn't do, however, is explain why. It said no results were found in its AI Source Match or its AI Phrases, but with a note: "There is no specific phrase that indicates AI. However, other criteria suggest that this text was generated by AI." I tried again, this time with a different ChatGPT-generated story about the Bengals winning the Super Bowl 27-24 over the 49ers, and Copyleaks provided a more detailed explanation. It calculated the content was 98.7% AI-created, with a handful of phrases singled out. These included some seemingly innocent terms like "made several critical" and "testament to years of." It also included some strings of words that spread across multiple phrases or sentences, like "continues to evolve, the Bengals' future," which apparently occurred 317 times more frequently in the database's AI-generated content than in human text documents. (After raising the issue with the first attempt with Copyleaks, I tried it again and got similar results to this second test.) Just to be sure it wasn't operating entirely on the fact that the Bengals have never won a Super Bowl, I asked ChatGPT to write an article about the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the World Series. Copyleaks found that 50.5% matched existing text online, but also reported it was 100% AI-written. A high-profile example Copyleaks did some testing of its own, using a recent example of a controversial alleged use of AI. In May, the news outlet NOTUS said that a report from the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again Commission contained references to academic studies that did not exist. Researchers who were cited in the MAHA report told media outlets that they did not produce that work. Citations to nonexistent sources are a common result of AI hallucination, which is why it's important to check anything an LLM cites. The Trump administration defended the report, with a spokesperson blaming "minor citation and formatting errors" and stating that the substance of the report remains unchanged. Copyleaks ran the report through its system, which reported finding 20.8% potential AI-written content. It found some sections around children's mental health raised red flags in its AI Phrases database. Some phrases that occurred far more often in AI-written text included "impacts of social media on their" and "The Negative Impact of Social Media on Their Mental Health." Can an AI really detect AI-written text? In my experience, the increased transparency from Copyleaks into how the tool works is a step forward for the world of AI detection, but this is still far from foolproof. There's still a troubling risk of false positives. In my testing, sometimes words I had written just hours before (and I know AI didn't play a role in them) could be flagged because of some of the phrasing. Still, Copyleaks was able to spot a bogus news article about a team that has never won a championship doing so. Yamin said the goal isn't necessarily to be the ultimate source of truth but to provide people who need to assess whether and how AI has been used with tools to make better decisions. A human needs to be in the loop, but tools like Copyleaks can help with trust. "The idea in the end is to help humans in the process of evaluating content," he said. "I think we're in an age where content is everywhere, and it's being produced more and more and faster than ever before. It's getting harder to identify content that you can trust." Here's my take: When using an AI detector, one way to have more confidence is to look specifically at what is being flagged as possibly AI-written. The occasional suspicious phrase may be, and likely is, innocent. After all, there are only so many different ways you can rearrange words -- a compact phrase like "generative AI model" is pretty handy for us humans, same as for AI. But if it's several whole paragraphs? That may be more troubling. AI detectors, just like that rumor that the em dash is an AI tell, can have false positives. A tool that is still largely a black box will make mistakes, and that can be devastating for someone whose genuine writing was flagged through no fault of their own. I asked Yamin how human writers can make sure their work isn't caught in that trap. "Just do your thing," he said. "Make sure you have your human touch."
