ai-writing-auditlisted

# AI writing audit ## What this returns, and what it will not claim This skill answers one question: **does this text read as machine written, and where.** It does not answer whether a machine wrote it. That is a different question and the evidence says nobody answers it reliably. The source guide records a 2025 study finding human accuracy at chance level, a second study at 57 percent on AI text, and a preprint putting heavy model users at about 90 percent, which still means one false accusation in ten. Detector tools are described in the same source as having non-trivial error rates and as breaking under paraphrase, markup changes, or an unfamiliar model. So the verdict is about reading, not authorship. Never write "this was AI generated". Write "these seven patterns read as machine written, here is the repair for each". ## The two layers **Surface layer.** Word choice, sentence shape, punctuation, formatting. Catalogued in `references/surface-tells.md`, built from Wikipedia's "Signs of AI writing" field guide. Cheap to detect and cheap to fix, which is also its weakness: these signatures get removed by each new model generation and by a single editing pass. **Discourse layer.** Theme, causality, time, agency, stance. Catalogued in `references/discourse-tells.md`, built from StoryScope (COLM 2026), which measured 61,608 stories and reached 93.2 macro-F1 on human versus machine using narrative structure alone, with zero style signals. Its conclusion states the reason