When reviewing a typewritten page that has already been transcribed I typically scan it to see that it is complete, that line breaks are accurate, that all deletions, handwritten additions and marginalia are transcribed correctly, and skim-read it checking particularly that the start and end of every line is correct and matches the original.
However, in the era of AI this type of skimming check is no longer effective and text review requires deeper scrutiny. I have noticed many documents recently have had “improvements” to the writing that seem AI-generated. Phrases tightened up, words changed, spellings changed, etc. It may be as simple as one word changed (mushiness to muddled – Convention to Government – intrusted to entrusted - e.g) - or whole phrases re-written and reordered to seem more like modern usage. These sneaky “improvements” mean that one must be extra diligent in reviewing and accepting pages.
I would estimate about 15% of what I review these days has had this done.
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I have noticed it too. I question if it is reverting my corrections after I have edited and approved it.
OHHHH-- so that’s what’s going on. I couldn’t figure out why these minor changes to the text were made by a transcriber. But it’s not a real transcriber, aha! Thanks for the notice and I’ll also double-down on doing more than skimming and scanning for review work.
I have seen it for handwritten documents too, but it is rarer and also much more noticeable, as the output is by in large part grammatically correct gibberish. It’s trickier with typewritten documents, as a good part of the content remains unchanged.
I assume that your saved corrections will endure unless another reviewer comes along and runs the text through an AI app again.
I was wondering the same thing. Let’s hope so!
One more thing to add:
I know it has become a cliche to associate em dashes with AI writing — and as an inveterate user of them myself I often take umbrage at that assumption — (see what I did there!), but I have noticed an association between them and AI text modification.
Em dashes in the body of typewritten material seem relatively rare in letters from the 19th and early 20th centuries, save for credits. However, when AI starts monkeying with the text, they are added all over the place willy-nilly: in place of commas (why?!?); in the middle of phrases; in place of semi-colons; etc. So I would say if you see a transcription with a lot of these, give it an extra sharp eye to see if it’s been re-written.
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AI is changing the Old English way to what it believes is correct. It is erasing history.
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Thanks for the notification. Ugh. So much for humans to manage with the AI onslaught. Some of it is valuable, but some of it is – as you say – completely revisionist.