Can you tell the difference between a human-written short story and an AI-generated one? Most people can’t. In a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/bot-or-not-can-people-tell-the-difference-between-stories-written-by-a-human-or-by-an-ai-system/45E6DC0BB90AA648654D5AE243F6C667"target="_blank" >series of experiments</a> led by a team at Villanova University, researchers found two things: First, most people said they preferred human written stories, but couldn’t tell the difference between AI and human writing; and second, when presented with two similar short stories, one written by a human and one generated by AI, readers tended to prefer the AI-generated piece – especially if they had been told the AI story was written by a human. We <a href="https://npr.org/2026/08/12/nx-s1-5913976/ai-human-detector-writing-check"target="_blank" >excerpted two of the short stories</a> on our website for you to guess which is AI-generated and which is human-generated. Check out the full set of stories <a href="https://osf.io/d8f6m/overview"target="_blank" >here</a>. Interested in more science and technology news? Email us your question at <a href="mailto:shortwave@npr.org"target="_blank" >shortwave@npr.org</a>. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at <a href="http://plus.npr.org"target="_blank" >plus.npr.org</a>.  See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>

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