Measuring Artifact Reliance in Machine-Generated Text Detectors

arXiv:2610.13583v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Detectors of machine-generated text score almost perfectly on scientific-literature benchmarks, implying we can reliably distinguish with these detectors human and machine-generated documents. We looked at ten scientific-document subsets from six popular resources, and on several of them that apparent ease is a side effect of how the documents were put together. A logistic regression using 27 superficial features reached 0.833-0.997 macro-F1, and on the three arXiv subsets it outperformed every detector we evaluate with F1-scores 0.951-0.997. The strongest cue to the detector is the PDF extraction artifact: human texts retain their original line breaks, whereas generated texts are extracted as a single block of prose. This cue, together with three other formatting features, tell the classes apart at 0.996 AUC. To distinguish benchmarks that contain such a signal from detectors that rely on one, we introduce format counterfactuals: just re-wrapping a machine-written abstract without changing a single word reverses 20-27% of a public detector's correct decisions. Normalizing formatting before training reduces the generalization gap from 0.32 to 0.22. On format-clean benchmarks, it also raises out-of-domain macro-F1 from 0.33 to 0.65 for detectors trained on artifact-containing subsets.

Abstract:Detectors of machine-generated text score almost perfectly on scientific-literature benchmarks, implying we can reliably distinguish with these detectors human and machine-generated documents. We looked at ten scientific-document subsets from six popular resources, and on several of them that apparent ease is a side effect of how the documents were put together. A logistic regression using 27 superficial features reached 0.833-0.997 macro-F1, and on the three arXiv subsets it outperformed every detector we evaluate with F1-scores 0.951-0.997. The strongest cue to the detector is the PDF extraction artifact: human texts retain their original line breaks, whereas generated texts are extracted as a single block of prose. This cue, together with three other formatting features, tell the classes apart at 0.996 AUC. To distinguish benchmarks that contain such a signal from detectors that rely on one, we introduce format counterfactuals: just re-wrapping a machine-written abstract without changing a single word reverses 20-27% of a public detector's correct decisions. Normalizing formatting before training reduces the generalization gap from 0.32 to 0.22. On format-clean benchmarks, it also raises out-of-domain macro-F1 from 0.33 to 0.65 for detectors trained on artifact-containing subsets.

Computation and Language (cs.CL)

arXiv:2610.13583 [cs.CL]

(or arXiv:2610.13583v1 [cs.CL] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.13583 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

analiza aiqbench

Measuring Artifact Reliance in Machine-Generated Text Detectors

Subiecte conexe