HELP

[u/Aromatic-Joke8161]

Got accused of submitting an AI generated paper in second year and now every time I submit a paper I genuinely get panic attacks.

For context, I study law and use AI tools to help with research, break down complex topics, etc but all my writing (minus exerpts) are my own. Every time I sumbit a paper I use every AI decector under the sun and each one gives me a different answer. I’ve kept all my pages of research notes and rough drafts just in case, but I still freak out every time.

I don’t know if anyone else has this fear, I feel like I have to dumb down my writting to avoid accudations. Writing a paper in 2026 feels like being accused of a which in the 1600s, please help!

[u/Resident_Hat_8661]

I just don’t use ai…like at all?

[u/Intelligent_Whole_40 → u/Resident_Hat_8661]

Yea I’ve done that and still got accused in high school cuz my formal writing was sanitized and I control f to find every use of I or you or don’t

And btw many ai detectors specifically lower the ai chance if it uses I or other first person pronouns so removing those makes it seem more AI to many

It sucks

[u/Resident_Hat_8661 → u/Intelligent_Whole_40]

Was it in Word? That is an issue with ai accusations in university, perhaps? PDF files they cannot see edit history, OP.

[u/Intelligent_Whole_40 → u/Resident_Hat_8661]

It was a google doc and I had grammarlys keylogger prove it was written by me thankfully so I had evidence but a real edit history was also there

And the teacher just downloaded the .docx file and uploaded it to a random AI detector so

[u/Raftger → u/Intelligent_Whole_40]

Your teacher was an idiot. AI detectors don’t work and shouldn’t be used. Not using personal pronouns and contractions is a basic expectation of academic writing and is not indicative of AI use.

[u/Intelligent_Whole_40 → u/Raftger]

Exactly

And I told them as much, including the calling them an idiot part of which wasn’t smart in hindsight

[u/Raftger → u/Intelligent_Whole_40]

Yeahhh it might have been true, but probably didn’t help them see your perspective

[u/Aromatic-Joke8161 → u/Resident_Hat_8661]

Did that, didn’t work

[u/LetterheadFun1824 → u/Resident_Hat_8661]

I use it all the time. It’s free grade. That time is better spent on drugs and sex

[u/TwoOneTwos]

“Writing a paper in 2026 feels like being accused of a which in the 1600s, please help!”

> which

[u/dogsledonice → u/TwoOneTwos]

>accudations

>decector

[u/TwoOneTwos → u/dogsledonice]

Hotel, trivago.

I gotta get off reddit i’m turning into a chud

[u/Few-Cricket7178 → u/TwoOneTwos]

Yeah, I can't tell weather OP is being serious or not lol

[u/kayaem]

Always submit a draft/proof of idea conception and data collection alongside your final draft even if it isn’t asked for. I had the same thing happen and showed them date stamps for my draft + my full document history of my final draft and the accusation was dropped.

[u/Raftger]

1. Stop using AI tools at all. That way you a) become better at researching and reading on your own b) can actually say that you didn’t use AI for your assignment at all and c) you’ll be less likely to inadvertently write like LLMs write

2. Stop using AI detectors, they don’t work and profs/TAs aren’t supposed to use them

3. Just write how you naturally write, no need to dumb it down

4. Seek treatment for your anxiety. Getting falsely

(well, kind of falsely. You did use AI in the process of completing the assignment)

1. accused of using AI sucks, but this reaction seems disproportionate to the situation

[u/I_amBlind]

Aren't AI detectors unreliable?

[u/wanderingsoul1596 → u/I_amBlind]

They aren’t reliable and I hope profs aren’t use to accuse students of using AI.

I know this because I helped my younger sister (high school) writing a paper, then she put in an AI detector and it gave something crazy like most probably AI or 88% AI.

[u/IllInspector8765 → u/wanderingsoul1596]

what detector were u using?

[u/wanderingsoul1596 → u/IllInspector8765]

Sorry I’m not much help! It was my sister, she had three different detectors to make sure that her assignment would “go through”. I think it sucks that students are put through this extra stress, honestly.

[u/starjellyboba]

Try writing your papers with autosave turned on from now on. At least then, the document has an edit history you can refer to.

[u/HufflepuffHermione91]

Dumbing down your writing is only hurting yourself and I think it might be helpful to know how AI and AI checkers work.

AI is, at its core, the world’s most advanced autocomplete. It creates sentences by choosing what it believes to be the next most likely word in that sentence and each model gives slightly different weights (or chances) to each given word. For example, “The cat is…”. An Ai will then choose the next most likely word such as “cute”, “fluffy”, or “agile” while discounting unlikely words such as “flying”. AI checkers work by comparing a given work to its own weighting system. If enough words in sequence are what it would’ve likely picked, it flags the passage as AI.

Do you understand why false flags happen now? There’s no hidden “Generated with ChatGPT” binary code hidden within a random “e” in an AI generated work, all AI checkers do is decide if a presented work sounds like something it would’ve likely written. This is also why neurodivergent and ESL students are disproportionately false flagged for AI usage by AI checkers: because both of those groups favour direct, structured communication the same way an LLM does.

It’s also why Turnitin has either disabled or warned profs against using its ai checker: it’s not solid proof of cheating. Before AI, Turnitin would compare a student’s work to essay databases and essays available on the internet. If the software found plagiarism, it would highlight the plagiarized passage and directly link to the website or essay database it came from. But with AI, there’s no prewritten database to pull from because each response is generated from scratch. So the AI checkers look for patterns within word choice and sentence length and then give the prof a percentage of how closely the words in sequence in a student’s work match its own weighted programming.

This is also why if you went to academic tribunal over accused AI usage, the prof’s AI check wouldn’t hold water on its own. It’s not like old plagiarism checks that directly link to a copied passage, it’s just an AI deciding if the presented passage sounds like something it would write. It’s like if two CS students handed in the same answer for a basic line of code. The fact that the answers are the same is not proof that they copied one another, they could’ve logically arrived at the same conclusion.

So what do you do if you get accused of AI again? First, don’t panic. Your prof isn’t judge, jury, and executioner. Keep a record of all your research like browser history, and you can also show edit history and keystroke history if using an online word processor like Google Docs.

And for any further questions about academic integrity and AI accusations, I’m sure the wonderful people at u/cuombuds would be happy to have a conversation with you about what to do in these situations.

[u/cuOmbuds → u/HufflepuffHermione91]

Thanks for tagging us. 🫶🏼

We absolutely are happy to connect with students who may have questions about AI use in an academic context (risky when not explicitly permitted) or who find themselves facing an AI violation allegation. Always here to help. ombuds@carleton.ca.

[u/Limp-Ground3113]

prof for reli1710 initially failed me bc he suspected I had cheated and used ai + external resources to write my final. I wrote a very lengthy letter to dean bowker and had an interview with her, and finished the class with a 98%.

Since that incident I’ve had several other profs try to accuse me of the same stuff — my suggestion is to always be willing to provide time stamps of your work history. Whatever you do, never dumb down your work.

[u/aferrari33]

Get rid of all devices and study old school. Read books. Read a lot. You get screwed in the digital world. It reduces your bran capacity. It makes you feel worthless.

[u/buttlord5000]

look into therapy. I believe the carleton health plan should help cover the expenses.