My Writing Journal

"is it rude if I politely ask a writer if they use ai or chatgpt on their works because I'm almost certain they do?"

yes, it is rude. no matter how polite you are being when you ask them this.

you say you are almost certain. so you are not absolutely certain.

unless you are absolutely, undoubtedly certain — with actual proof — that their writing is ai generated, never ever ask an artist if their work is ai generated.

I know several writers who would stop writing and delete all of their works if they were ever accused of using ai. so it doesn't matter if you are polite when you ask them this, you are suggesting that their works are ai generated, that they didn't create the works they could have spent hours, days, weeks, months or years working on.

ai and chatgpt are trained on real humans' works, they are trained to mimic the way real humans write. so if you say a genuine writer's work "looks ai", I'm gonna have to ask you what you think ai was trained on.

a writer whose English isn't their first language may also write in a way that "looks ai" to some, if they write in English and have to rely on translator.

using em dash isn't a sign of ai. I do it all the time. my fellow writers all love em dash.

having long paragraphs with "overly described scenes" isn't a sign of ai. I do it all the time, and so do my fellow writers.

all the "ai signs" are actually just what most writers actually do. they get mistaken for "ai signs" because sometimes the way writers write or describe a scene in a fanfic or an original work is different than the way people talk or text. because they're writing a fic and describing a scene, not chatting with a friend. the way I talk is different than the way I write my fics.

if you suspect a work was ai generated, but are not 100% sure, you can always just stop reading said work without saying anything.

if someone does use ai to write, they will either a.) deny and continue using ai to write or b.) admit because they see nothing wrong with it and continue using ai to write.

if a genuine writer was wrongly accused of using ai, they may stop writing altogether.

asking a writer if they use ai or chatgpt to write will always do more harm than good. witch hunting will always do more harm than good.

it’s not “hey do you like x or y” question. it’s a subtle implication that your work looks like it was written by a robot within a minute. if you personally don’t find that offensive, that’s cool. but I know a lot of writers do. and they have the rights to be discouraged by it.

Asking a writer or artist if they “use AI” is an accusation, no matter how you dress it up. It’s not neutral. It implies you think their effort, style, or voice is artificial. It implies that their human work doesn’t look human enough for you.

You don’t protect the community by policing people who are actually creating from scratch. You protect it by supporting human creators, reporting confirmed AI misuse when there’s evidence, and learning the difference between this sounds different than what I’d write and this is machine-generated.

Writers—especially fanfic authors—already pour their time, emotion, and identity into what they share for free. They don’t owe anyone proof of authenticity on top of that. And if your question makes someone want to quit writing, it’s not protecting the community. It’s shrinking it.

👏 AI 👏 witch-hunts 👏 hurt 👏 legit 👏 creators! 👏

Because the question is accusatory by nature, and the people actually using AI probably aren't going to care, or will just lie to your face about it. Also people are terrible at identifying AI writing, because it was trained on real people.

If you think someone might have used AI in their work, don't ask them if they did. Scroll away. Quietly unfollow. Leave them alone.

charles_leclerc A day we’ll forever remember. 🤍