Artificial intelligence (AI) is a concern for many. The tools it is bringing are incredibly powerful, and yet they are threatening our educational system. See Arms Race in Academia (March 2026).
I speak frequently with educators, and they are concerned about student skills, including critical thinking and, particularly, writing. I have heard the lamentation that students struggle to write well, and some have never learned to write in cursive. Their handwritten material is block printed at an extremely slow pace.
Regular readers may recall thoughts on this in Screen Time Wins (February 2026), and the source cited there. See also Indeed Sancho Panza (July 2025). The potential for our brains to deteriorate without challenges is noted in More Proof of Idiocracy (September 2025). It is fair to say that the status and progress of our youth concern me.
I ran across the wonderful AI tools for searching and verifying content. I have long been a user of grammar checkers and spell checkers. These are likely everyone's first experiences with AI, though rudimentary. But recently, I was drawn to the "free" plagiarism and AI detectors on the market. The sheer volume of results from a Google search for "free plagiarism detector" is notable.
In a parallel vein, I have struggled with the proliferation of writing that seems plastic, predictable, and a little too familiar. Some are generating material using AI and publishing it as their own work. They assure that they are reviewing and approving of the content, but they are not writing it. In this, the lines between author and editor may blur.
My curiosity led me to paste one of my own paragraphs in to such a detector. The first one told my that my paragraph was 85% AI Content.
The screen results did not tell me which particular words or phrases it identified. The "free" program graciously offered to clear my work of AI content for a fee.
I declined and moved on with my research. The next program was kinder in its characterization. It did not use the word "plagiarism" but said there was "65% similarity detected." Nicer language, and less than the 85% alleged by the first program. That platform allowed me to "remove plagiarism," but the results of its efforts remained locked until paid for.
I next tried a program called GPTzero. This scan concluded that the same paragraph was "entirely human"-created. The platform made a sales pitch for its services, with the ability to scan a vast amount of material, "up to 300,000 words per month," and to produce reports, seemingly for the defense or one's writing and honesty.
Papers Owl yielded a similar result on the AI content, concluding my paragraph was "100% original." The phraseology there was similarly less abrasive. The alternative to "original" was "similar." A conclusion that the writing was not original would not be accusatory but would suggest revision might be appropriate nonetheless.
Papers Owl proceeded, nonetheless, to offer to write my paper for me. The option of having your term paper written by a professional is not exactly new. See Better Look that Up (July 2025); Am I Diminishing? Am You? (May 2025). Nonetheless, the patency of this offer was somewhat surprising. There are apparently those who would purposefully cheat on an assignment and others who are happy to facilitate that choice. Who knew?
Finally, I turned to a name I recognized, Grammarly. That is a platform that I have used on various occasions to clean up my utter lack of comprehension regarding some of the most basic rules of punctuation, tense agreement, and more. I was pleased that this search, likewise, did not suggest any plagiarism.
In any event, I was already 100% confident that my work was my own. I had typed the words myself (or dictated them into my phone). I am not striving for a grade nor profiting from my writing. And yet, there is that potential for nagging doubt. No, not doubt of your work, but of the market's perception of that work. The potentials are noteworthy; see Plagiarism Now? (February 2025); Fallacy and Introspection (January 7, 2024).
But what of the student, the associate, or the overwrought professional? What of those who have a paper due and find themselves with untoward or even inaccurate results from these platforms? Will they default to the "pay as you go" corrections or simply hire a professional writer to do their work? In that regard, are they different from those who ask an LLM to write a paper or article for them similarly?
The world is evolving rapidly. I have had some intriguing and deep conversations about these challenges with some of the most brilliant people I know. The breadth of perspectives, considerations, and concerns is both enlightening and challenging. One is left to wonder if academic rigor will survive and if it needs to. Will the education and roles of humans persist?