The Study
Human versus artificial intelligence: investigating ability of young academics from research and non-research institutions to identify ChatGPT-generated dental research abstracts
This study watched six new dental researchers try to guess which abstracts were written by a robot and which were written by people. It found that sometimes they got it right and sometimes they didn’t—and the robot detectors were better at it. But it didn’t prove that robots are always better or that people always fail—it just showed what happened in this one small test.
Analysis score
Maximum 44 for a cross-sectional study.
Where the score came from
Scientists gave young dentists 150 abstracts—half written by humans, half by ChatGPT—and asked them to guess which was which. They also tested computer tools to see which could spot the robot-written ones.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 544 / 100
Quality score
Snapshots of a population at a single point in time, or descriptions of small groups. Can identify correlations and prevalence, but cannot determine cause and effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes—this means even trained young researchers can't reliably spot AI-written science, but computers can, especially Turnitin and GPTZero.
- 2Humans got it right only 44% to 76% of the time.
- 3GPTZero got it right 90% of the time.
- 4Turnitin got it right 94% of the time.
- 5Robot abstracts were rated lower quality and looked very different from human ones.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Scientific Reports
Year
2026
Authors
Matheel Al-Rawas, Omar Abdul Jabbar Abdul Qader, G. S. S. Lin, Yew Hin Beh, Muhammad Annurdin Sabarudin, Yee Ang, J. Low, J. Abdullah, T. Noorani
Related Content
Claims (6)
AI systems can create fake scientific studies that appear real and are presented as valid research.
Dental academics early in their careers cannot reliably tell whether a research abstract was written by a human or by ChatGPT, with accuracy rates ranging from 44% to 76%, which is no better than guessing for some.
GPTZero correctly identifies whether a dental research abstract was written by a human or by ChatGPT 90% of the time, which is more accurate than two other AI detection tools tested.
Early-career academics from research-intensive universities are no better at detecting AI-generated dental abstracts than those from non-research universities.
When evaluated using a standardized scoring system, dental abstracts written by artificial intelligence are consistently rated lower in quality than those written by humans, with AI abstracts mostly falling in the average to poor range and human abstracts rated as excellent or good.
Turnitin can correctly identify whether a dental abstract was written by a human or generated by ChatGPT with 94% accuracy. Human-written abstracts show complete text overlap with known human texts, while AI-generated abstracts show partial overlap, indicating different writing patterns.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.