TECHNOLOGY
AI Detection Software
The class of algorithmic tools deployed by schools and universities in 2025–2026 to identify AI-generated student writing — the paradigmatic case of Skenazy's overprotection trap, implementing a protective measure whose harms exceeded the risk it was designed to mitigate.
AI detection software — products like Turnitin's AI writing detection, GPTZero, Originality.AI, and dozens of competitors — purported to distinguish human-written text from AI-generated text with high accuracy. The tools were deployed across thousands of educational institutions between 2023 and 2026. The documented reality was that the detection was unreliable, systematically biased against non-native English speakers and students with unusually formal writing styles, and produced false accusations that subjected students to humiliating administrative processes based on flawed algorithmic assessment. The software became Skenazy's paradigmatic case of institutional safetyism in the AI age: a protection whose harms exceeded the risk it addressed, deployed for institutional liability rather than student welfare.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The technical problem with AI detection is structural rather than contingent. Detection tools work by measuring statistical properties of text — perplexity, burstiness, token distribution patterns — that are associated with AI generation in training data. The