The Mark That Says a Human Made This

Can a mark tell readers how much of an AI-assisted article belongs to its writer?

I recently spoke with a writer I mentor who wanted something they assumed didn’t exist. They’d noticed social media platforms placing AI labels on some posts and didn’t find those labels useful.

“What I really want is a standard, recognizable symbol,” they told me.

Something like the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo or ENERGY STAR, the US government-backed mark identifying products and buildings that meet defined energy-efficiency standards. A writer could place it on printed or web content to tell readers that a person created what they were about to read.

I understood the appeal. Readers increasingly have trouble determining how an article was produced. Writers who create their own material have little more than a byline with which to describe their process. So I went looking for the mark and found something interesting.