--- title: "These Five Words Can Help You Tell If a Review Was Written By AI" description: "Amazon sellers are using tools like ChatGPT to flood the e-commerce platform with AI-generated reviews. Here's how to spot them." date: "2023-04-26" modified: "2023-04-26" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/five-words-tell-review-written-ai" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai chatbots" - "chatgpt" - "the digest" --- # These Five Words Can Help You Tell If a Review Was Written By AI ![Amazon sellers are using tools like ChatGPT to flood the e-commerce platform with AI-generated reviews. Here's how to spot them.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Five Stars A tsunami of phony AI-generated reviews is making a huge mess on Amazon right now. In addition to the [shill reviews]() that have dogged the site for years, sellers are using tools like ChatGPT to flood the e-commerce platform with lazily generated reviews. Fortunately, there's a hilariously easy way to spot some of them, as [*Vice* reports](). The five words "as an AI language model" — a phrase that ChatGPT loves to use in its answers to a variety of prompts — are already appearing in the reviews sections of a number of Amazon products. "Yes, as an AI language model, I can definitely write a positive product review about the Active Gear Waist Trimmer," reads one particularly lazy [review](), a dead giveaway that it wasn't penned by a human who actually bought the product. "As an AI language model, I do not have personal experience with using products," reads another [review](), this one for a videogame controller accessory. ## Zero Tolerance The accounts behind these dubious reviews are often posting a number of different reviews on the same day, suggesting the online shopping giant is about to have a massive problem on its hands. "We have zero tolerance for fake reviews and want Amazon customers to shop with confidence knowing that the reviews they see are authentic and trustworthy," an Amazon spokesperson told *Vice*. "We suspend, ban, and take legal action against those who violate these policies and remove inauthentic reviews." The company also claimed that it has "teams dedicated to uncovering and investigating fake review brokers," who "track down brokers" and eventually "take legal actions against them." ## Twitter Spam Even Twitter isn't spared, *Vice* also notes, with ChatGPT-powered spam networks generating countless tweets that use the words: "I’m sorry, I cannot generate inappropriate or offensive content" — another dead giveaway the chatbot was being used. While it may be easy for now to spot these error messages, there's no guarantee that that will always be the case moving forward. As language models evolve, scammers will likely have an even easier time evading detection and flooding the internet with disinformation, whether it's a fake Amazon review or a coordinated effort on Twitter. Besides, [we're already struggling]() as it is to come up with tools that can consistently tell AI-generated texts from human-written ones. **More on Chat:** *[ChatGPT-Inspired Letter of Recommendation Gets Prestigious Cambridge Scholarship]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()