Why do people actually prefer AI-generated stories to human writing? New study reveals surprising insights

A new study published by Cambridge University Press has revealed surprising insights regarding people's preferences for AI-generated stories compared to those written by humans. Despite the taboo surrounding AI use in the literary industry, this research suggests that readers actually prefer AI-written pieces.

In the study, 1,682 adult participants were asked to read one of six short stories, three of which were penned by humans and the other three crafted by ChatGPT. The stories shared similar topics and styles with one another, and participants were informed about the author's identity – either human or AI – without always being truthful. Across the board, readers rated AI-written stories as more engaging and of higher quality than their human counterparts.

Interestingly, when participants were led to believe that AI stories were written by humans, they gave them even higher scores, indicating an underlying prejudice against AI-generated content regardless of its quality. Villanova University's Deena Skolnick Weisberg, one of the study's authors, noted in a press release that "public assumptions about AI's capabilities are increasingly out of date," as people tend to underestimate AI's capabilities due to their belief that creative writing requires unique human qualities such as emotional understanding and lived experience.

Despite AI-generated writing being trained on human work, Weisberg believes that AI writing's tendency to be clearer, more direct, and easier to process may make it more appealing to readers. In contrast, many human-written stories are subtle and complex, which could be why people prefer predictability. Recent trends in AI-generated content include infrequent punctuation, long sentences, and reliance on rhetorical conventions like "it's not X, it's Y" and the rule of threes.

Although AI writing is reportedly blander, authors using LLMs to write their work reported similar satisfaction to those who didn't use AI. However, Weisberg believes that AI can never truly replace human writers, as humans still need to write for creative self-expression, challenging themselves, and making sense of their experiences. She emphasizes that AI-generated stories do not diminish the appreciation for human creativity.