Students now using ‘humanizers’ to make AI-generated essays read less like AI

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Students in the U.S. are increasingly using software designed to make AI-written essays sound more human, helping them avoid being flagged as AI-generated.

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly common, and it’s already changing many parts of our lives, including education. We’re seeing examples like teachers using AI to create tests, and students forming relationships with AI chatbots. However, these changes aren’t always positive, and can sometimes be quite harmful.

Generative AI is becoming increasingly common in education, and reports show most students are now using it in some way. These tools are helping with tasks like research and, in some cases, even completing entire assignments, and their influence is growing rapidly.

It’s getting crazy! Teachers and professors are really starting to catch students using AI to write papers, so now I’m hearing about this new thing where people are running AI-written essays through other programs first. Apparently, these ‘humanizers’ are supposed to make the writing sound less robotic and more like a real person wrote it. It’s like AI writing AI’s work to avoid getting caught!

Students using AI are now falling back on ‘humanizers’

According to NBC News, many US college professors are now using AI detection software to check student papers. Some schools report identifying hundreds of students who may have used AI to complete their assignments.

A new approach to bypassing AI detection tools is gaining popularity: ‘humanizers.’ These programs take text generated by AI – like an essay – and suggest small changes to make it sound more like a human wrote it.

This could involve small changes like fixing grammar or punctuation, or bigger edits to how paragraphs are organized. The goal is to make AI-written content appear more human, so it’s less likely to be identified as being created by AI.

These programs can cost as much as $20 a month. But it’s not just students who use AI tools – NBC News reports that even students who write their own work are now trying to make it sound more human, because their original writing is sometimes incorrectly identified as being created by AI.

According to Erin Ramirez, an education professor at California State University, students feel pressured to demonstrate their humanity, ironically, even if they’ve never used artificial intelligence. She believes this creates a never-ending cycle.

It’s strange, but the better someone writes, the more likely AI detectors are to mistakenly identify their work as being written by AI. I’ve actually been testing this by running my own writing through these detectors, because I want to understand how they work before accusing students of using AI. Every time, it flags my work as AI-generated with almost 100% certainty, even though I didn’t use any AI tools at all.

The report indicates that some students are deliberately making their writing appear less sophisticated to avoid being flagged as using AI. This includes intentionally adding errors, like misspellings, to seem more like a human writer.

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2026-02-03 03:49