Spell checker contaminated by AI?

[Packard]

Lately, my spell checker has been replacing correctly spelled words with other similar words.  My guess is that AI says that the other word is more logical. 

Worse, it does this with zero fanfare.  The changed words are not highlighted, underlined or indicated at all.  It is only when re-reading my posts that I am discovering the word swaps.

Anyone else seeing this? 

Also, I am not sure what spell checker is doing this.  I ended my relationship with my previous spell checker (Grammarly) and have not signed up for any other.

As an aside, Grammarly and a professor and his AI detection software are being sued.  Apparently Grammarly’s corrections looked enough like AI composition to flag the student’s work as AI generated content.  The student was given a failing grade as a result.  Even if it turns out that the student did use AI generated content, who certified the detection software as being reliable?

 

[squall_line]

As a point of fact, most institutions would consider Grammarly-corrected content to fall under the "no use of AI" policy.  Generated or proofread/corrected, it's all the same.  Writing a paper is about more than just getting the facts straight, it's about composing your thoughts clearly and coherently, and if you use a crutch to do that, the crutch is doing the work, not you.

The only automatic word replacement that I have encountered when using a website is on my iPad with the screen keyboard, or on my Android phone with a swipe keyboard.  When I'm swiping, it's pretty clear to me when I have something replaced because I'm not actually typing, so I'm paying pretty close attention to what's appearing on the screen.  On my iPad, I have to be careful when taking notes, typing a journal, or doing anything else like that on a screen keyboard.  I have moved to a physical keyboard for most tablet entry now.

 

[Ron B]

A few years ago I was reading an article on on the Nazca lines in Peru (ancient archeological designs).  It was an interesting article, but as I read further, Nazca was changed to Nascar.  I stopped at that point blaming the author for the error, but later realized their credibility was probably destroyed by AI. 

AI can write articles now because today there are no journalism standards. An article used to state"who, what, when, where, and maybe how".  No one ever covers those bases anymore. 

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Apparently, I'm a little slow about this? I thought Grammerly made "suggestions", kind of like looking up words in a Thesaurus, so you don't keep using the same word all the time? or like a spell-check that underlines misspellings and gives you choices.
It seems a bit fishy to me that the "correct" usage of language would get you flagged as AI corrected?
How the heck does that work? My English teacher would be annoyed that her work is now a problem.
I'm sure she's long gone though, it was nearly 50 years ago... [blink]

 

[luvmytoolz]

Our mum passed away last year and I was organising the funeral and celebrant, after meetings with the celebrant and providing lots of life info about mum, she sent a draft that absolutely horrified us as it was very obviously something just plugged into AI. She was horribly embarrassed as she should be, but I guess that's the sign of how things are going now. Instead of having a personal eulogy you now just pay someone to cleanup an AI generated article/speech, etc.

We were quite shocked at how bad and utterly incomprehensible the AI results were though.

 

[Packard]

I was watching a news program on TV, and they had an ad for some prescription medication. It has been a “thing” lately to market directly to potential patients, rather tha to medical doctors.

There was a pleasant female voice for the voice over.  As I listened it became apparent that the speaking cadence was 100% uniform, no variation in loudness in any syllable.  And the end of sentences did not trail off and the beginning of sentences did not ramp up.

I have no proof, but the impression left me convinced that it was AI generated.  Too uniform, too perfect.  Like comparing real walnut furniture with furniture clad in walnut Formica.

I think that in the future we will see more of that.  Faster, cheaper and more convenient than hiring voice actors.

 

[Ron B]

We were quite shocked at how bad and utterly incomprehensible the AI results were though.

The direction our education system is going, it will not take long for AI to pass our standards.

 

[luvmytoolz]

We were quite shocked at how bad and utterly incomprehensible the AI results were though.

The direction our education system is going, it will not take long for AI to pass our standards.

If what I see online is anything to go by, it's already surpassed the norm! The ability to string a coherent sentence together isn't everyone's forte nowadays!

 

[Packard]

I used Grammarly for several years.  It did a good job as a spell checker, and I particularly liked that it checked agreement between the verb and the noun so that my singular verbs were matched to singular nouns and that plurals matched too.

But on that early iteration it did not change words entirely.

I use an iPad primarily.  Is the spell checker Apple’s or something the forum software provides?

For example, in the last sentence above, the spell checker did not like “provides”.  It was trying to push “provider/providers”. 

It put “Provides” in quotation marks, something the software does, which means “do you want to use this incorrect word or spelling anyway even after I’ve given you better choices”.

But the “better choices” were clearly incorrect, and if I am just reading what I typed, and not glancing at the word suggestions below, the spell checker will make the changes anyway.  AI (which in many type faces looks like the man’s name “Al”) still has a long way to go. I prefer A.I. to AI.

 

[squall_line]

I use an iPad primarily.  Is the spell checker Apple’s or something the forum software provides?

If you use the on-screen keyboard on an iPad, the auto-correct (not actually spell check) is part of the operating system.  It's designed to assist more with typos/fat-fingers more than spelling issues, though it does provide spelling corrections/suggestions.  This is primarily because of the lack of physical feedback and potential touch-inaccuracies of a screen keyboard that lends itself more easily to missing the appropriate "keys" when typing, something that is more difficult on a physical keyboard (though not impossible, obviously).

 

[Packard]

I generally use an Apple blue tooth linked keyboard, though right now I am using the much slower built-in keyboard.

I was not aware that there were any software changes involved with the change of keyboards.