To start, I was born before the internet. I have no problem going back to writing with a pen on paper, in cursive, using a paperback dictionary I borrowed from the local library. Also, if you are experienced, you should be able to tell whether a paragraph contains a real opinion or thought.
Yet AI allegations have happened, are happening, and will happen. Over and over. Until AI eventually “wipes out humanity” (or the bubble bursts; we will see which comes first). The technology itself and its progression are both beyond my expertise; I don’t comment further. But for writers, artists, and other creatives, the concerns are legitimate. Great writers whose books we grew up with inspired readers to think, feel, and practice their own crafts. But in 2026, other than being broken by the Hollywood glamour destroying many of us’ teenage fantasies, we worry that someone might occasionally accuse us of plagiarizing when we poured our hearts out and worked our a–es off. Even the most ethical writers now need to be prepared. To prove a point in a conundrum that doesn’t even have regulation.
Anyway, I will start with a true story.
A clueless allegation in academia
Months ago, I enrolled in a non-degree online graduate course at a university ranked among the top 50 worldwide. One weekly assignment required students to choose a modal and justify the choice for a health communication campaign. The prompt consisted of a single open-ended sentence like this, without any additional instructions. Since there were no specific metrics or template for the “why,” I followed the textbook’s guidelines on selecting modals to justify my decision. Because my project was to create a public health educational brochure, I combined concepts from two different modals to address mind change and behavior change, and used a third modal to guide the overall layout. All of those were explained explicitly at the very beginning of the paper.
Then the professor left a 70/100 and a comment: “I don’t understand your structure […] did you use ChatGPT for this?”
Honestly, if he’d ever used ChatGPT (the 2026 models), was good at writing, had any real experience in the field, or had a decent familiarity with the textbook, he wouldn’t have reached that conclusion. I put together a ~1,000-word email to the office with clear reasoning and all evidence I could collect. Fortunately, I used Word with file metadata and had a very consistent portfolio with logical coherence. The program director wanted to scale it down; the professor then sent me an “example” of what he expected.
It turned out that the professors’ understanding of “why” was a detailed operational plan and a list of projected behavioral outcomes. As for the AI allegation, he backed down. “I was just asking a question” because “your structure is hard to follow.”
Which was laughable. I pointed out the minimal, open-ended prompt, the hidden, arbitrary grading expectation, and the difference between “how” and “why” (CC’ing the director and BCC’ing the deans and ombudsperson, of course). By the end of the email, I pushed back on his attempt to downplay his own AI allegation. Not only did I declare that I had reached out to the office, but I asked him bluntly: If someone told an offensive joke and later framed it as “I was just joking,” would that justify his behavior?
Plus, a straightforward “my structure is not difficult to follow at all!”
The point is: why did it even happen?
The incident happened right after the final dropout deadline. Long story short, the department later didn’t grant an administrative withdrawal or a refund, nor did it provide official, written confirmation that the professor’s allegation was groundless. Prove it or not, bureaucracy or not, it didn’t matter for my career change. I wasn’t on the degree track, didn’t care about the grade, and, certainly and evidently, wouldn’t return to that university.
But the point is, it shouldn’t happen.
While people are arguing whether higher education is still necessary, I believe this is the exact example you want to take into consideration. Higher education is no longer a symbol of intellectual stimulation (perhaps it never was; it’s just better exposure now). Many people choose to stay because that is the field and environment they are familiar with. Others, those who cannot finish a PhD program, are sometimes the brightest batch who could not tolerate a toxic, mediocre supervisor.
This is especially true in the field of humanities. In the arts, for example, mediocrity sometimes is political correctness, and that correctness, distilled over time, grants the person a position of power. Because the entire field rests on someone‘s opinion, subjectivity is easily weaponized when resources are limited. More brutally, there are no real rules in the creative field. In the commercial world, perhaps sales and follower base. But what is the measure of success as an artist in academia? It all boils down to power and politics, the ultimate tools for guaranteeing a career.
Human behavior is complex. Not to conspire, with all due respect, mediocre people are usually the ones who abuse power once they have it. And perhaps that’s why they were desperate for it in the first place.
But sadly, people look only at your status, not your actual talent.
How could writers even prove it?
Not intending to publicly whine, but how?
First, whether or not you want to make a full-time career crunching words, the basic economic rules apply. As non-fiction writers, we use an SEO strategy and do research. Keyword integration in the first paragraph is not always cosmetic. It can break the rhythm and the flow. But now, the math is clearer than ever: a less-than-ideal aesthetic is better than no reach at all. But the problem is, SEO strategy is a formulated, logical game, not an artistic, free-spirited outlet. Everything will sound similar—in fact, everything has to sound similar to rank higher (yes, I used an em dash here; accuse me). Then someone jumps out and shouts, ” You guys are all using AI because you sound similar.”
When everyone is grinding on the same chessboard, no one checkmates.
Second, proudly and without even a hint of fear of ageism, I am a mid-millennial career changer. I survived a dysfunctional family of origin and early adulthood, and I am returning to graduate school for science. To anyone who uses punctuation and phrasing as a measurement: we older people learned writing from the materials they used to train AI. Em dashes are legit punctuation. They can only be cosmetic, but writers need to be free to use them. As for negative parallelism (it isn’t; It is), “your xx will thank you”, or “fast-paced digital world”… they are all part of the old content-writing archive. Once upon a time, some writers popularized that style, and everyone chased the trend. Just like everyone on TikTok suddenly started promoting Korean skincare.
Yet all of a sudden, someone’s muscle memory becomes “proof” of AI abuse.
Third, no one said AI or other tools can not be used to assist our work. There are guidelines for ethical use, such as proofreading, facilitating research, or suggesting rephrasing. When people groundlessly accuse someone of AI use, they’re better off being explicit. What are they suggesting: the idea? Phrasing? structure? Style? If you want to accuse someone, you have to understand the weight of your words. Do not make a fool of yourself. AI-generated text is actually incredibly easy to recognize (2026 models): repeated analogs, no human creative use of language, fluff that doesn’t really articulate thoughts… Just like that pseudo-professor’s failed allegation, which he later had to twist into “just wonder if you’re using AI as a tool.” That doesn’t make him look intellectually superior (or anyone who does it).
Final thought
Some writers now have to intentionally include typos or minor grammar flaws to prove authenticity. It is hard to watch genuineness and passion die out when society is f—ed up to the point that humanity has to prove itself because of an invention by humans. And that technology may be a real existential threat with a greater than 10 percent probability (we will see whether that is a marketing stunt).
If this is the civilization humans created, maybe we shouldn’t be so proud of ourselves as the “highest intelligence” species on this planet.
*What is the Feature? Medium-length analyses, information, investigations, or explorations, rotating across topical pillars.
*What is the Navigator Series? As a researcher, writer, and artist who survived a dysfunctional family of origin and early adulthood, I am willing to share lived experience and research-informed opinions.
