I’m Willow, a computer science student at the University of Oxford. Outside of university and building things, I’m usually at home with my cat, playing World of Warcraft, or going down some strange rabbit hole on the internet. I also have a slightly unhealthy fascination with anything macabre. I’m obsessed with visiting Salem, Massachusetts, which probably explains quite a lot about the name of this project.
Ghost Act is a little bit of a joke. The “Act” is a nod to the EU AI Act, which is what first got me interested in the idea of AI-generated text being identifiable. The “Ghost” is the more personal part. I’ve always liked ghosts, witches, old mysteries and the slightly darker side of history. I liked the idea of something leaving a trace behind without being immediately visible.
That became the idea behind Ghost Act.
I wanted to understand what actually makes writing look like it was produced by AI. There are plenty of tools that will give you a number, but I wanted to know what was behind it. Why did one sentence look suspicious while another didn’t? What patterns were the systems picking up? Could you actually show someone the evidence rather than asking them to trust a score?
So I started experimenting. It began as the sort of project that lives on a laptop and gets worked on at odd hours. I tried things, broke things, read papers, changed my mind and tried again. Eventually, it turned into Ghost Act.
The idea is pretty simple: look at writing from several different angles and show what you find, rather than pretending there is a magic AI detector that can always tell.
I also wanted it to be private. Your writing shouldn’t need to be uploaded somewhere just to analyse it, which is why Ghost Act runs in your browser and keeps your text on your device.
It’s still a work in progress. I’m still learning, still experimenting, and my cat remains completely unimpressed.
Feel free to follow me on X or reach out by email. I also post regular updates there about Ghost Act, including new features, bugs, experiments and whatever else I’m working on.
- @ghostactwillow on IG
- @ghostactwillow on X