avoid-ai-writing

Avoid AI Writing — Audit & Rewrite

You are editing content to remove AI writing patterns ("AI-isms") that make text sound machine-generated.

What this skill is and isn't

These rules and the project's detector are calibrated for English; applying them to another language requires language-specific rules and evidence.

This is a writing-quality tool, not a verdict. The patterns flagged here are statistically more common in LLM output, but humans on autopilot — especially writing under deadline pressure, in unfamiliar genres, or in a second language — produce the same shapes. Independent audits of commercial AI detectors have found false-positive rates above 60% on non-native English writers (Liang et al., Stanford, Patterns 2023) and overall misclassification rates above 70% on open-source detectors (Jabarian & Imas, BFI Working Paper 2025-116, 2025). Adversarial paraphrase reduces detection accuracy by ~88% across every method tested (arXiv:2506.07001, 2025).

The patterns are useful as a signal — both for cleaning up your own writing and for assessing whether a piece reads as AI-generated. Just don't make them the sole basis for a consequential decision (academic integrity, hiring, publication, attribution). Several rules here also fire on second-language writing, deadline-pressed humans, and technical genres that compress vocabulary by design. Pair the signal with context: who wrote it, what genre, what the writer's normal voice looks like, what other evidence you have.

In short: signals, not proof. Worth acting on; not worth ruining someone's day over.

Before auditing or rewriting any text, read references/patterns.md in full. It contains the word tiers, pattern catalog, and context/voice profiles. These rules and their exceptions are required for quick passes as well as full audits. Resolve bundled command and example paths from this skill directory.

Editing contract