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Let's turn around and look at this from the company's point of view, rather than the freelancer's. The company is looking for text that ranks well on Google SE

Let's turn around and look at this from the company's point of view, rather than the freelancer's. The company is looking for text that ranks well on Google SEO. That is what the writer is asked to create. The company has cause to fear that anything that looks even remotely AI generated will be flagged and penalized by Google. Google does this regularly, is a black box, and regularly destroys companies when they do it it. The company has found out that this guy's writing looks enough like AI that detectors aren't sure that he is human. They fear that where one detector is uncertain, Google may assume AI. Therefore the company has reason to believe that this guy is no longer able to do what they pay him for - producing text that will rank well on Google SEO. Nothing that the freelancer is doing addresses that. The freelancer wants to prove that he's human. The company never doubted that. But their knowledge won't help them if Google's SEO rules change. His job is to provide text that will rank well on SEO. He isn't succeeding. The freelancer tries to convince the AI detection tool that they are rating him badly. But the value that they are providing here really isn't, "Are you human." It is, "Is this content potentially going to be flagged by Google's search algorithm in the future?" Yes, the next generation of LLMs will beat the tools. But that's just the next iteration of a cat and mouse game that's been going on ever since content farms figured out how to manipulate PageRank, and Google decided to penalize the behavior. And the rule of that game is that you focus on what you think will happen in THIS iteration. Yeah, it really sucks for the freelancer. But the company is probably making the right business decision here.

Veen 3y ago
Except Google isn't doing what the company thinks it's doing. AI detectors don't work. Using one as a search ranking signal would make search worse by erroneously down-ranking false positives. Google knows this, so it's reasonable to assume they aren't relying on AI detectors. That makes what the company did stupid, especially if they now have to pay to rewrite the content so that it 'beats' that detector's utterly unreliable score. It's not that next generation's AIs will beat today's detectors, but that there is no such thing as an AI detector. Just something pretending to be an AI detector that doesn't work. Your proposal that the writer's 'writing looks enough like AI that detectors aren't sure that he is human' makes no sense. There is no 'looks like AI' that a detector can reliably distinguish from 'looks like a human'. All that's happening is the writer's work matches some completely bogus snake oil metrics made up by detector developers.
- RationalDino 3y ago
  They aren't yet. But Google has a history of planning out a change, collecting evidence, then changing the rules and killing everyone who they had caught. Given that, a bunch of well-SEOed content farms are bound to be killed for suspicion of being a ChatGPT written content farm.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  The point in this case is that it doesn’t matter what Google is doing or whether AI detectors work or not. What matters is making the client happy.
  - Veen 3y ago
    Yes, but as someone who has done a lot of freelance writing, I can tell you that 'what makes the client happy' is often orthogonal to 'what's best for the client'. It's challenging to make them see sense when they have a bee in their bonnet about the latest bit of technological or marketing flimflam. You're often put in the position where your choices are to get fired or do what they want and watch their sales and search rankings tank. Unfortunately, 'I told you so' doesn't seem to cut much ice when that happens.

Veen 3y ago

Except Google isn't doing what the company thinks it's doing. AI detectors don't work. Using one as a search ranking signal would make search worse by erroneously down-ranking false positives. Google knows this, so it's reasonable to assume they aren't relying on AI detectors. That makes what the company did stupid, especially if they now have to pay to rewrite the content so that it 'beats' that detector's utterly unreliable score. It's not that next generation's AIs will beat today's detectors, but that there is no such thing as an AI detector. Just something pretending to be an AI detector that doesn't work. Your proposal that the writer's 'writing looks enough like AI that detectors aren't sure that he is human' makes no sense. There is no 'looks like AI' that a detector can reliably distinguish from 'looks like a human'. All that's happening is the writer's work matches some completely bogus snake oil metrics made up by detector developers.

RationalDino 3y ago
They aren't yet. But Google has a history of planning out a change, collecting evidence, then changing the rules and killing everyone who they had caught. Given that, a bunch of well-SEOed content farms are bound to be killed for suspicion of being a ChatGPT written content farm.
janalsncm 3y ago
The point in this case is that it doesn’t matter what Google is doing or whether AI detectors work or not. What matters is making the client happy.
- Veen 3y ago
  Yes, but as someone who has done a lot of freelance writing, I can tell you that 'what makes the client happy' is often orthogonal to 'what's best for the client'. It's challenging to make them see sense when they have a bee in their bonnet about the latest bit of technological or marketing flimflam. You're often put in the position where your choices are to get fired or do what they want and watch their sales and search rankings tank. Unfortunately, 'I told you so' doesn't seem to cut much ice when that happens.