Which YouTube script was written by AI?

This week, one of my students shared a hook he was working on for a new script.

Alongside it, he shared an AI rewrite of the same hook.

His question was simple: "Which do you prefer?"

A few of us debated this in the comments underneath, and something unexpected happened:

None of us agreed.

• I thought his version was significantly better.
• He thought AI's version was better than his own.
• Another student preferred elements of the AI's version, and elements of his.

This lack of consensus intrigued me, so I decided to discuss the topic on my podcast, Making It.

My co-hosts, Jamie and Gwilym, are two YouTube strategy people, and I wanted to know whether they'd be able to reach a consensus.

So I created a little game for them 😈

I broke down each version of the hook - the human version, and the AI version - into 7 key "moments".

My co-hosts had two tasks:

1. Guess which version was written by AI.
2. Decide which they preferred.

Their responses were... incredibly revealing 👀

• Firstly, they correctly identified the AI sentences in 7/7 scenarios.
• Secondly, they preferred the "human" sentences in 6/7 scenarios.

This was pretty much what I'd expected.

AI outputs have plenty of little "tells" that reveal a human didn't write it, so I wasn't surprised they'd correctly identified then.

But then something happened that I really didn't expect.

To finish the episode, we read both hooks, one after the other, in full.

And despite having overwhelmingly preferred the human writing in the individual sentences...

...when taken as a whole, they actually preferred the AI version.

Even though its its individual sentences felt clunky, the flow of the AI - the way it was structured - made it feel like a more complete package.

My takeaway:

• Use AI to help create structure. It’s good at turning a messy brainstorm into something that flows.
• Don't let AI write your scripts line-by-line. It constantly slipped into annoying jargon and buzzwords.
• Always do a "human pass" at the end. However and wherever you've used AI in the process - always do a final check. Read it aloud. Throw in your own turn of phrase. Make sure it's saying what you actually think, not a lesser version.

That's all for this week.

Although, I'm curious... from the example I shared, can you tell which is AI-written?

Hit reply and let me know!

Speak soon,
George 👋