People Are Really Angry At AI Content Even If It Turns Out That AI Didn’t Produce It And The Content Was Actually Human Made

InnovationAIPeople Are Really Angry At AI Content Even If It Turns Out That AI Didn’t Produce It And The Content Was Actually Human MadeByLance Eliot,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Dr. Lance B. Eliot is a world-renowned AI scientist and consultant.Follow AuthorMay 20, 2026, 03:15am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.People think they can tell if AI made something, but they can't, and their anger is at anything that they think was AI generated.gettyIn today’s column, I examine how anger about the widespread adoption of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) is leading people to assume that they can readily recognize AI-generated content when they see it, even though they can’t. Their fury blinds them. Furthermore, when shown human-devised content and told a fib that it was generated by AI, people tend to still make disparaging remarks about the item because they believe it was AI-generated.This is the AI-is-rottenness bandwagon running amok.The crux consists of these newly emerging five rules-of-thumb:(1) People believe they can cleverly discern when something is composed by AI, but the reality is that they cannot actually do so.(2) If shown a piece of content that is not labeled as to how it was made, people are generally no better than random chance at guessing whether it was AI-generated or human-made (all else being equal).(3) If told that a piece of content is made by AI, people will disparage the item.(4) If a piece of content is made by AI, but a person is told it was human-made, the person will tend not to disparage it as they would if they thought it was made by AI (they give the benefit of the doubt to human handiwork).(5) People emotionally allow their preexisting bias against AI to materially shape their perception of content shown to them.Let’s talk about it.This analysis of AI breakthroughs is part of my...