AI tell
AI 티
한국어로 읽기An AI tell is the trace readers notice in AI prose: uniform sentences, named emotions, stock metaphors, summarizing endings. Readers punish it with ratings.
Also written as: AI 티 나는 문장 · AI 냄새 · AI 특유의 문체 · AI 흔적 · AI 티 없애기 · AI-sounding prose
Meaning
An AI tell is a trace that lets readers recognize prose as AI-written. It is a pattern rather than a specific word. Sentence lengths are uniform. Emotions are named ("a wave of sadness came over her"). "The weight of years," "a corner of her heart," "as if" recur. Paragraphs end in summary or reflection ("it was a new beginning"). Every character talks the same way. Dialogue consists only of complete sentences. Conflict resolves too quickly and too smoothly. When several of these overlap, readers feel "this sounds like AI" even when they cannot say why.
Why it matters
On Korean web novel platforms the AI tell is the practical regulation. Even without AI-use rules on KakaoPage and Naver Series, readers have organized one-star protests against works where AI-style prose showed through. Contests exclude AI manuscripts outright. A writer who uses AI for drafts and posts without a revision pass to remove tells loses not the work but their credibility. Reducing tells happens at two stages. At generation: a style sample, a list of banned words, a specified end point. At revision, mechanical checks work: find emotion nouns and replace them with actions, delete paragraph-final sentences that summarize, deliberately vary sentence length, give each character one verbal habit. SparkLore's AI-trace check automates these.
Example
A paragraph with tells: Yuri held the bankbook and fell into deep thought. This small object, filled with her grandmother's love, moved her heart. Tears rolled down her cheeks. It was sadness and gratitude at once. Yuri resolved to carry on her grandmother's wishes.
After revision: Yuri held the bankbook. She did not open it. The ballpoint on the cover had smeared. Her grandmother always pressed hard when she wrote in ballpoint. Yuri put her thumb over the letters. Then she slid the bankbook into the inside pocket of her coat and turned off the kitchen light.
Removed: "deep thought," "filled with love," "moved her heart," "tears," "sadness and gratitude," "resolved." Kept: an object, actions, one habit (pressing hard with a ballpoint). The resolution became "slid it into the inside pocket."
Common mistakes
- Watching only the detector score. Detectors are statistics; readers are people. The goal is removing the tells readers feel.
- Swapping words. Changing "the weight of years" to "the traces of time" leaves the tell intact. Change sentence structure and how emotion is handled.
- Posting an AI draft unrevised. A draft is material. On a web novel platform the price of posting raw material arrives as ratings.