Does a typo prove you’re human?

As artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT become part of everyday writing, a new online insult has emerged: “Did AI write that?” Increasingly, the phrase is used to question authenticity and credibility. 

For Time, University of Michigan School of Information professor Nicole Ellison, an expert on AI and human-computer interaction, explained how social norms of writing are shifting. 

Her past research found that people once viewed typos as negative signals, especially in contexts like online dating. 

“They would see that as a signal that either this person is uneducated, or that they don't care," she says. “Now we’ve kind of come full circle, where a typo maybe signals that you actually do care, because you took the time to write it yourself.”

Ellison says part of the tension is that there are “no established norms” at the moment on using AI to write material. 

“I assume that we’ll collectively, as a society, come up with shared expectations,” she says. 

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Read “The Internet’s New Favorite Insult: ‘Did AI Write That?’” at Time. 

Learn more about Nicole Ellison’s research on social media by visiting her UMSI faculty profile.