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AI or Human? The Writing Test
Read one passage and say who wrote it. Some of the human lines are public-domain sentences that sound strangely modern. Some of the AI lines are dressed up like a nineteenth-century page. A round is 10. The reveal names the source, then one or two habits to notice. Detection is unreliable, and the page says so.
- Read Prose, a poem, a letter, or a short description. Two to five sentences.
- Choose Human or AI. Press H or A, or use the buttons.
- See the source Author, work, and year, or a line that says the passage was written by AI for this game.
Passage 1 of 10
Best on this device: none yet.
Your detector accuracy
No answers yet
Press H for Human or A for AI. The buttons do the same thing.
Source notes
The human passages are short excerpts from works first published in 1928 or earlier. In the United States those works are in the public domain. Each one is quoted with the author, the work, and the year. The wording was checked against public-domain editions. The AI passages were written for this game. They are original, and the reveal labels them Written by AI for this game. Nothing on this page is fetched from a model when you play.
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859
- Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885
- Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart, 1843
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, 1925
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, 1892
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
- Emily Dickinson, Poems, 1890
- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 1892
- W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903
- Aesop, The Hare and the Tortoise, translated by George Fyler Townsend, 1867
Why a tidy sentence is not proof
Hedging, a matched set of three, and a landscape with no measurement show up often in generated prose. So does a last line that announces a lesson. People do all of those things too. Dickens opens a novel with paired opposites. Austen states a neighborhood rule as if it were a law. A model can also mention a red mitten or a clock stopped at a particular minute, then take the detail back. The tells under each reveal are there to practice a close reading. They are not a verdict you could use on someone else's work.
If you want a different kind of practice, the Prompt Battle compares two prompts without calling a model, the AI detector reads text you paste, and the AI humanizer rewrites stiff paste. Those two send text to an AI. This page does not. The Tech Myth or Fact deck is the short quiz for claims people repeat, and it stays in the browser too. The Real Photo or AI quiz asks the same kind of question about pictures.
FAQ
Does this upload my answers?
No. The test runs in your browser. The only thing saved is your best score, in this browser's local storage. The passage you saw and the choice you made are not stored and are not sent anywhere. The page does not call an AI.
Are the human passages public domain?
Yes. Each human passage is a short excerpt from a work first published in 1928 or earlier, which puts it in the public domain in the United States. The reveal names the author, the work, and the year. The source notes on this page list them.
Were the AI passages written live by a model?
No. The AI passages are original text written ahead of time for this game. The reveal labels them Written by AI for this game. Playing does not send the passage to an API.
How does a round work?
Each round is 10 passages drawn from a deck of 24. You choose Human or AI, then see the source and one or two tells. Play again deals another 10. Your detector accuracy is the share of the round you got right.
Are the tells reliable?
No. Hedging, symmetry, generic imagery, and specific detail are habits, not proof. A person can write a tidy sentence, and a model can land on a particular one. The note under each reveal says so.
What is saved on this device?
Only your best score. Clearing site data for cyberscryb.com removes it. The test does not ask for an account, and leaving the page drops the current round.