Most People Prefer AI Writing, but That’s Because It’s Trained on Us
A new study finds that people rated AI-generated stories higher than human-generated stories, especially when told that a human wrote the story.
The new study conducted by Cambridge University Press and researchers at Villanova University revealed that people may not actually prefer writing created by humans. Instead, they may simply favor stories that sound human. The research involved 1,682 participants aged 18 to 81 who read a few fictional stories and rated their quality and engagement. The stories were either labeled as AI-generated or human-written, and participants were then asked to identify which one was written by ChatGPT.
In the second and third experiments, participants were given one human-written and one ChatGPT-generated story, but the origin was not disclosed. The results showed that the majority of participants (over 60% in experiment two and over 48% in experiment three) could not correctly identify which content was AI-generated. Professor Deena Weisberg, senior author of the study and professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Villanova University, suggested that people have a bias towards narratives written by real people.
She noted that we assume creative writing requires uniquely human qualities, leading us to underestimate AI's capabilities.
Weisberg also mentioned that AI-written stories tend to be more direct, explicit, and simple, whereas human-written stories are more subtle or complex. For example, one AI-generated story mentioned in the study reads, "So now, as I sit by the pond, the autumn leaves falling gently around me, I think of my mother, of the stories she shared, of the wisdom she imparted."
In contrast, a human-generated story reads, "Perhaps, I think, we are all experiencing a kind of birth after all, she laboring and I midwifing, her husband playing the role of nervous father, not sure what he'll do after the sacred event occurs, not sure what to do now." The AI-generated text is simpler, uses shorter paragraphs, and lacks literary devices like similes and metaphors. This directness and simplicity might be the reason why people prefer AI-generated writing.
The study's findings may not be entirely attributed to contemporary media consumption, but rather, AI systems are amplifying existing tendencies in people's preferences. These tendencies are likely shaped by the fact that these AI systems are trained on the writing we as humans have enjoyed and consumed for decades. As Weisberg concluded, "It's more that these technologies amplify existing tendencies, rather than creating them."
Written by urgent.news from CNET's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
