Generation Z's Ability to Discriminate Between AI-generated and
  Human-Authored Text on Discord
Dhruv Ramu Rishab Jain Aditya Jain
The growing popularity of generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots
such as ChatGPT is having transformative effects on social media. As the
prevalence of AI-generated content grows, concerns have been raised regarding
privacy and misinformation online. Among social media platforms, Discord
enables AI integrations -- making their primarily "Generation Z" userbase
particularly exposed to AI-generated content. We surveyed Generation Z aged
individuals (n = 335) to evaluate their proficiency in discriminating between
AI-generated and human-authored text on Discord. The investigation employed
one-shot prompting of ChatGPT, disguised as a text message received on the
Discord.com platform. We explore the influence of demographic factors on
ability, as well as participants' familiarity with Discord and artificial
intelligence technologies. We find that Generation Z individuals are unable to
discern between AI and human-authored text (p = 0.011), and that those with
lower self-reported familiarity with Discord demonstrated an improved ability
in identifying human-authored compared to those with self-reported experience
with AI (p << 0.0001). Our results suggest that there is a nuanced relationship
between AI technology and popular modes of communication for Generation Z,
contributing valuable insights into human-computer interactions, digital
communication, and artificial intelligence literacy.