{
  "id": 160080,
  "title": "AI-generated stories rated better quality than human-written ones, study finds",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/04/ai-generated-stories-rated-better-quality-than-human-written-ones-160080",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-04T23:01:03.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Technology",
    "slug": "guardian-technology",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/05/ai-generated-stories-rated-better-quality-than-human-written-ones-study-finds"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A recent study has found that AI-generated short stories were rated as more absorbing and of higher quality than those written by humans. The research, published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making, involved 1,682 adults who read one of six short stories, three of which were authored by humans and three by the AI program ChatGPT. Participants were told which stories were human-written and which were AI-generated, though the information was not always accurate. Despite this, participants rated the AI-generated stories as more engaging and of higher quality than the human-written ones. However, participants who were told the stories were human-authored gave higher ratings to those stories. Dr. Deena Skolnick Weisberg, a senior author of the research from Villanova University, stated that AI systems can already generate short stories that are at least as good as human-written ones, suggesting that our views of AI's abilities should be updated. However, Weisberg noted that human-authored novels are likely to differ from AI-generated ones. The researchers also conducted two additional experiments, with 905 adults given two of the six short stories on the same theme, only one of which was human-written. The participants guessed which story was written by a human and which by AI, with about 40% guessing correctly in one experiment and 52% in another. AI writing has a distinct style that can be learned to recognize with practice, according to Dr. Weisberg. The preference for human-written stories may be due to the desire for authenticity, but people actually prefer AI-generated stories because they are easier to read and digest. Luke Kennard, a professor of film and creative writing at the University of Birmingham, emphasized that AI is highly contentious, noting that it is based on a massive database of stolen human writing and is trained on vast amounts of physical datacenter resources with negative consequences for surrounding communities.",
  "summary": "A study published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making found that AI-generated stories were rated better quality than human-written ones. The study involved 1,682 adults who were asked to read one of six short stories, with three written by humans and three generated by ChatGPT. Each AI story had a similar theme to one of the human-authored works.\n\nAccording to the researcher, the AI-generated stories were considered easier to read and digest due to their simpler writing style. However, this does not necessarily mean that human authors are obsolete.\n\nThe study compared the reception of AI-generated stories to human-written ones, with the AI stories mirroring the themes of the human-authored works. The findings suggest that AI-generated content may be providing competition for human authors.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 3,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Guardian Science",
        "title": "AI-generated stories rated better quality than human-written ones, study finds",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/04/ai-generated-stories-rated-better-quality-than-human-written-ones",
        "published": "2026-08-04T23:01:03.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Digital Trends",
        "title": "Study finds AI-generated animal stories rarely have a female lead",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/06/study-finds-ai-generated-animal-stories-rarely-have-a-female-lead",
        "published": "2026-08-06T10:29:20.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}