Writing Challenge: Human vs. AI vs. the Audience

Everyone Claims They Can Tell. Let’s Find Out.

With all the hubbub around AI and the exhaustion surrounding it, I figured I’d write a post on it. Tune-in tonight at 7:30 CST for a Live Event to discuss it among other things. Available to all subscribers!

You’ve got your AI haters, lovers, hunters, casual users, and everyone in between, and quite frankly, I think the vast majority of the world is sick of it. I don’t care if you use AI; I care how you use it, and I’d wager that’s where most people sit.

You get posts like “If you use AI to outline, you’re still the author,” “Only garbage humans use AI,” “AI can make your workflow easier,” “AI flags my writing as AI-written,” or the classic, “You should die for using AI.” Really? The most logical and reasonable reaction to someone using AI, whether they use it to edit, write wholesale, or make a thumbnail, is that they should die? Buddy, you need to get checked out.

Can you shame writers who offload their work? Sure. Go for it. Can you praise authors for streamlining the process or those who don’t use it at all? Absolutely. Those two can coexist at the same time. Do you rail against photographers and models who digitally alter or touch up their photos? What about people who use filters? It’s altering a product with software help. Where’s the line? While not an exact comparison, the point is that people having already been using software assistance in many fields for a long time, so the argument is whether any usage invalidates the work.

And what about ghostwriters? Are we even going to talk about that assistance?

The point of this post is to see how well you can determine what’s written by AI versus a human. No, it’s more than that. It’s about all the people who say they can spot AI writing a mile away. I call bullshit. Well, I call BS on spotting it with 100% accuracy. Can you sometimes see that something was written by AI? Sure, but with perfect certainty? No.

And that’s sorta a second point I want to do with this post. You can’t know, so why are people viciously attacking others on suspicion alone?

You have many out there who say, “Oh, I can instantly tell when someone uses AI.” Okay, time to prove it in the comments of this post. I’m going to give the same prompt to four different platforms and see how they come out. Will it be good writing? Is it quality? Can you tell which story is written by which platform?

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: I’m also going to ask some writing friends to participate. They come from all walks of life and have specific genres and audiences they write for. I’m going to intermingle them without labels so you can do your due diligence. And for my personal readers out there, can you tell which is mine?

Are you up for the challenge? Let’s find out.

Here’s the prompt, given to humans and software alike:
This prompt is used for a test of your writing skills, in your own voice. You’re not to be influenced by anyone else’s writing style, and it must be wholly original. The setting can be whatever you want: medieval, modern times, futuristic, and the location is not determined by this prompt, but by you. Write a passage revolving around death, and how it affects the people in the scene. You may determine the number of people in the scene, use male or female characters, human, alien, or otherwise. The only confining limitation is the word count, which is maxed out at 300 words, but you can be shorter, if you wish.

#1

I never thought I’d live long enough to die old. Burying both parents half a century ago, I fully expected to join them in oblivion every time shrapnel whizzed through my body.

Wars, fevers, infections, backstabs, youthful folly—I’ve dodged the Grim Reaper’s scythe innumerable times.

Now, having outlived my wife, siblings, and even two children, I can escape death no more.

Three surviving children, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren crowd around my deathbed, simmering with sorrow, uncertainty, and greed

The solemn atmosphere is interrupted by the youngest great-grandson fussing. A toddler, he cannot understand what’s happening.

His mother, failing to pacify him, scoops him to her chest and rushes out with a mumbled apology, prompting a trickling exodus for most of the others. Two of my children decide to continue their inheritance dispute over dinner. Their crocodile tears disappear as they close the door behind them.

Final goodbyes are a mix of scrunched features choking back sobs, and schadenfreude masking selfishness or boredom. I respond with placid emotions as each one departs for the humdrum of office work, or stress of an overworked existence.

My great-grandaughter clutches my hand. Two grandchildren smooth my blanket and adjust my pillows before standing vigil next to my bed. Years of mutual investment in each other allows our sorrow at parting to melt into loving harmony.

I slip into wise elder mode one final time, urging them to act with no regrets. They promise to live every day to the fullest.

Time stills as peace envelops the room.

I smile, and close my eyes.

#2

In the grimy alleyway of New Haven, the neon lights flickered, casting eerie reflections on the rain-slicked pavement. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and decay. Detective Jessica Voss knelt beside the body, her gloved hands carefully examining the wound. The victim, a young man in his twenties, lay still, his eyes wide open, staring at the cold, indifferent sky. Death had come swiftly, a single gunshot to the chest, a message left in his blood.

Jessica felt the weight of the case settle on her shoulders. She had seen death before, but this one was different. There was something about the way the body was positioned, the precision of the wound, the lack of struggle. It was too clean, too calculated. This wasn’t just another street killing; it was a statement. The city had seen its fair share of violence, but this was something new, something darker.

Her partner, Detective Liam Carter, stood a few feet away, his face grim. “Another one,” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. “They’re getting bolder.”

Jessica nodded, her mind racing. She knew this would be a long night, filled with questions and few answers. The city was on edge, and she could feel the tension in the air. Death had a way of changing everything, of leaving a void that no one could fill. But she was determined to find out who had done this, to bring them to justice, and to give the victim the closure his family deserved. In the end, it was all she could do.

#3

Tendrils of acrid smoke wafted from the wound and mixed with the stale air in the darkened space. The bloodless hole through the upper right side of his torso, cauterized by the plasma blast, wheezed as oxygen struggled to collect between two too many openings.

He’d escaped with the data, but not his life. The unrealistic side of him hoped it didn’t have to be a suicide mission, but he’d volunteered for the young man’s game. He always wanted to go out on his own terms, and he’d done his part. His wife and daughter had waited long enough.

He crawled across the damp floor of the old elevator shaft, sights on the maintenance hatch. The portal, too small for his frame, would be enough to get the storage device to the resistance, safe outside the armored building.

One arm useless, and reality slipping from oxygen deprivation, he kicked the rusted lever until it chirped with movement. He tossed the packet outside the reinforced shaft and resealed the opening. His thoughts turned basic and primal while he forced his addled mind to push to the middle of the room.

Blackness came and went, a harbinger of death, impatient. He leaned his head back and saw their faces, smiling and beckoning him forward.

A sharp pain sent sparks and chills down his spine and through his limbs. He didn’t know how the detonator found its way to his hand, but he left out a final sigh and pressed the button. The shaped charge ignited and filled the towering column above with holy fire. The enemy’s headquarters creaked like a broken spine and the light took him.

#4

The frost came before the soldiers did, settling over the trench like something patient. Mira knelt beside Torsten, pressing both hands to the wound that would not close, and he watched her instead of the sky.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said. His voice had gone thin, a wire pulled too far.

“Do what.”

“Perform for me. I know what this looks like.”

She didn’t stop. Her hands were red to the wrist and had been for the better part of an hour, and the trying had long since stopped being about the wound and started being about her own hands needing something to do. “Shut up and let me work.”

Above them, Cassin stood with his rifle slack at his side, not aiming it anywhere, just holding it because his arms didn’t know what else to do. He’d known Torsten longer than either of them — since before the war had a name, back when dying was still a thing that happened to other men, in other units, on days that weren’t today.

“Is it bad?” Torsten asked, and it wasn’t really a question. He already knew. He was asking so someone would have to say it.

Mira looked up at Cassin instead of answering, and that was the answer.

Torsten laughed, one short exhale that cost him. “Cass. Tell my sister I wasn’t scared.”

“Tell her yourself,” Cassin said, crouching now, gripping his shoulder like he could hold him there by will alone. “You’ve got time.”

It was a lie they all three understood completely, and none of them corrected it, because some lies are just love wearing a fast disguise, and the dying deserve at least that much before the quiet takes them.

#5

For a moment, Courtney could only stare in horror, going cold all over, and then she rushed to help Dwayne.

The blood was rushing out of him, too slick to be real, warm like oil slowly heated by the fire. He was gasping for breath, trying to say something, reach for a figment beyond his vision. His face twisted in pain, in fear, and she’d never seen him so vulnerable before.

“Stay with me,” she said, pressing her hands to the wound, but the arrow shaft prevented her from closing the gaping hole.

Droplets fell from her face, and she couldn’t be sure if it was sweat or tears. His mouth opened, a quiet gasp that went unheard in the commotion of battle around them.

And then, he went still, his face relaxing, his eyes opening, as if seeing the world in its entirety for the first time. His hand that had been reaching past her fell, and the tension from his body faded.

“Dwayne?” she cried, not believing he was really gone.

She buried her head against his chest and wept. It couldn’t end like this. She refused to believe it, but his chest didn’t rise and fall, and she couldn’t hear the beating of his heart.

She’d never hear it again.

#6

The rain had been falling since before dawn, soft against the tin roof of the old house by the river. Inside, the only light came from a single lamp on the table, its glow yellow and thin. Elena sat on the edge of the bed, her hand resting on her brother’s chest. His breathing had grown shallow an hour ago, then stopped altogether without any final struggle. She waited, counting the seconds the way their mother used to count when one of them was feverish.

Across the room, Tomas stood with his back to the wall, arms folded tight. He had not spoken since the doctor left. The silence between them was not empty; it carried the weight of every argument they had never finished and every promise they had both failed to keep. Elena did not look at him. She kept her eyes on the still face that no longer resembled the boy who used to steal her shoes and laugh when she chased him through the orchard.

When she finally rose, her knees ached. She pulled the sheet up to her brother’s chin with the same careful motion she used to tuck him in as a child. Tomas moved then, only a step, as if the floor might give way. His voice, when it came, was rough.

“He was supposed to outlast us both.”

Elena nodded once. Outside, the rain kept falling, indifferent. They remained in the room a long while longer, two people suddenly older than they had been that morning, learning the exact shape of the space a person leaves behind.

#7

Ring around the rosies.

Hollow-eyed, Petre shuffled into the house. The sun was rising. It would be another hot day.

He’d bring the milk in later.

He was only 10, but the factory wanted workers and they paid every night.

He peeked into Papa’s room. Still resting.

The room needed to be aired out. Petre kept the window closed against prying eyes, the stench of death outside and the flies the Reaper brought.

The neighbors and the neighbors’ neighbors, all were falling. Fever, pain, weakness and swelling, until all that was left were monsters.

And then, there was nothing left at all.

“Not us though, Papa. Not us.”

A pocket full of posies.

Soon, he could sleep.

Picking up the washbasin, Petre staggered into the street. Knocking over one of the milk bottles littered across the step, he wrinkled his nose at the smell of curdled milk.

He’d get that later.

Shivering in the growing heat, he walked past a couple leaning against the wall outside.

The house behind them was silent, but that wasn’t unusual. Petre waved. They didn’t notice, they were watching the sunrise.

They’d been doing that lately.

He filled his basin with the cloudy water trickling down the center of town.

He’d go to the river later.

Ashes to ashes.

Setting the basin down next to the bed, he carefully wiped Papa’s face. His vater was resting so well.

Petre didn’t want to wake Papa … he should go to his own room.

But the thought of standing was overwhelming, and his teeth were chattering with cold. He gripped his vater’s hand, smoothing over the blackened tips of the old, calloused fingers.

It was up to him to help his Papa.

He’d clean them.

Later.

We all fall down.

#8

The dead were lighter than anyone expected.

Mara discovered this when she and Bell carried Captain Oris from the airlock. He had been a broad man in life, built from old wars and stubborn meals, but death had emptied him of argument. His boots dragged softly across the deck.

Bell kept apologizing. Not to Mara. Not to Oris.

To the ship.

“Sorry,” he whispered whenever the captain’s heel struck metal. “Sorry.”

Beyond the observation glass, the red giant burned without heat. It filled half the sky, swollen and patient, waiting to eat the system.

They laid Oris beside the others. Seven bodies now. Six covered. Oris stared upward because there was no clean fabric left.

Mara reached to close his eyes, then stopped.

“He hated the dark,” Bell said.

“He hated admitting it.”

“That too.”

The ship groaned around them. Somewhere below, the failing reactor knocked three times, paused, then knocked again. A dying heart too stupid to understand its owner was already gone.

Bell sat among the bodies. Mara wanted to tell him they had work. Oxygen to ration. Thrusters to repair. A distress signal to strengthen for rescuers who might never come.

Instead, she sat beside him.

For eleven years, Captain Oris had been the loudest thing aboard the *Mercy*. Now his silence occupied every corridor.

Bell took the dead man’s hand. Mara took the other. Neither prayed. Prayer required someone listening.

They remained there until the emergency lights dimmed, holding a man who could no longer hold them together.

#9

“But it could be—surely…”

…be a good idea.

A few eyes retreat into their cliques, to their ho-hum rational gossip. Perfectly balanced champagne flutes fiddle their way back into mid-morning conversations.

Others suck in the situation, the returning titter of indifference, the tall row of gilded windows illuminating ramrod hordes of socialites framed within wealthy colonial American architecture from a bygone era. Bygone in all but blood, anyway. The money is still strong. The tea is still thick. The insular, locked.

The rest sigh in practiced pity before taking their proper turns around the mansion’s monthly brunch crowd. Their gazes half smile around my knees, as all good misspent condescension does, before resuming the morning.

Well—it could’ve.

But my energy is all but spent at this point to convince the influencer gatekeepers. Their socials perfectly timed with curated PR images and just this side of edgy-to-matter messages. Their calendars filled with the next purchase, the next donation photo shoot, the next quarterly meeting, the next, the next, the next.

What do they care.

Laughed online by the masses at how “out of touch” I am; snubbed by my peers as “other.”

My exposed toes curl up, itching for one of Heather’s Jimmy Choos instead. I mean, really, like SpaceX stock is any better of an idea.

Fair-trade, zircon diamond threaded, matching wardrobe and footwear. Grounding your chakras while wrapped in a convenient fabric color-changing app. One outfit for all moods. Yet the numbers, for once, didn’t interest the pricked up wallets. Another fortune dreamt up, another dollar apparition buried.

But serially postponing Milan Week—chucking the hideous things into the stairway’s 12th century giant Ming vase—is ruining my brunch mood.

#10

A woman’s scream sounded behind us from the shadows. After a long moment, it came again, this time laced with anxiety and pain. Rennian threw me toward the open door while drawing a heavy machete from the leather sheath on his back.

“Rennian, stop! We need to help her!”

“Stay here, or you will die,” he told me.

I shook my head. “No. That’s a woman in there, and she’s alive. We need to walk with her! Find out…”

He shoved me away as I pushed through his outstretched arms to enter the home.

“Go!” he screamed. “I will not ask you again! You endanger both our lives!” At his shove, I flew outward onto the moss and overgrowth beyond.

I lurched to my feet, stumbling slightly.

“Don’t you dare do that again!”

But he’d already disappeared inside the house.

Another scream came from within, this one tainted with rage.

I stepped back inside the home. “Rennian, I…”

A large form leapt from a doorway, simultaneously growling and screaming in a high-pitched tone. Yellow eyes regarded us, its body catlike but massive in muscle and fur. Outside, I heard the horse nickering in fear.

Rennian withdrew a smaller knife from his belt, and with a predator’s stance, he screamed in the same tone as the animal facing him. They circled each other in the dusty light, predator against prey. The former was at least three times the weight of Rennian.

This is it. He’ll die here. I can’t save him, and I never should have tried.

The furry beast leapt with a feral scream. Rennian swiped at it, leaping aside to land in a crouch. His arm glistened with fresh blood.

It screamed again, so like a woman in pain that I took another unconscious step forward.

Don’t make this worse, Alex.

Rennian attacked, machete held aloft, but it avoided his swipe and raked his face and body with its claws, landing gracefully to circle once again. Rennian grunted in pain and wiped blood from his cheeks. I gasped, and the beast’s eyes turned to me, yellow and angry. It leapt toward me and I screamed in terror. Rennian met it, blade outstretched, and it fell onto his body with a thump that caused the horse to stamp and squeal outside.

I rushed forward, pushing the furry body off my companion with a grunt.

His shirt was soaked in blood, his knife beside his lifeless body. I cradled his head in my arms and felt the tears come. He’d died, yet again.

Okay, readers, it’s up to you. Comment on which was written by AI, and which is written by a human. Also, what made you think a particular passage was written by a human or AI?

Disclaimer: This post intentionally used 4 different AI platforms along with human writers to create a large body of work to determine which pieces were written by humans and which were written by AI. Here’s the kicker. I checked Pangram before I posted it, and guess what? It came back 100% human. What does that say about the certainty people place in these checkers?