July 24, 2026
Typing test from hell
Proving a Human Wrote Something
Can you prove a real person wrote it? The internet is already fighting about it
TLDR: A writer built a tool to help show that a human, not AI, wrote a piece by tracking the time and typing behind it. Commenters instantly turned it into a drama pit: some want it, some say it’s easy to fake, and others are panic-editing their prose to sound less robotically perfect.
A writer trying to reclaim their human voice in the age of AI has accidentally kicked off a very online identity crisis. In the post, they explain that they use artificial intelligence tools plenty for coding and busywork, but draw the line at letting a machine shape their actual writing style. Their answer is Semoi, an Obsidian plugin that tracks how long a document took to write and records the messy little signs of human effort, like keystrokes and revisions. The basic pitch: humans are slower, sloppier, and more personal — and maybe that’s exactly what needs proving now.
But the comments? That’s where the real fireworks are. One camp thinks the idea is clever and practical, with people already asking how it handles writing across multiple days and editing sessions. Another camp immediately went full doom mode: if bots learned human language, why wouldn’t they learn “human typing” too? Several commenters basically declared this an arms race that cheaters can fake by making a machine type badly on purpose. And then came the most relatable plot twist of all: one person confessed they’re now making their own writing worse on purpose just to avoid being accused of sounding like “AI slop,” which is both hilarious and a tiny bit tragic. Meanwhile, the most dramatic anti-AI commenter didn’t want tools at all — just vibes, reputation, and a social circle that knows their hatred of AI is "embedded into the core of my personality." Subtle!
Key Points
- •The author says they continued writing, running Inch Press, and maintaining open source projects even after blogging less following the dissolution of their company.
- •The article cites a hand-written-without-AI disclaimer from Mitchell Hashimoto as the trigger for a broader question about proving human authorship.
- •The author states they use AI extensively for coding, commits, feedback, and automation tasks, and argues engineers should learn to work with it.
- •The post distinguishes coding from writing by arguing that written expression depends more heavily on the author's own route to the final result.
- •The author introduces Semoi, an Obsidian plugin that tracks writing time and keystroke history as evidence intended to demonstrate human-written text.