People might have all kinds of conflicting (and confusing) opinions about AI. We’re having discussions about how it should be used, when we should be ok with it, and whether or not to fight how it shows up in our everyday lives – among other things.

If there’s one thing most of us agree on, though, it’s that we want to know when something was created by AI instead of humans.

In fact, this new poll shows that 80% of Americans think presenting AI content as made by humans should be illegal.

In the poll, they were asked specifically about the story that recently broke about Sports Illustrated using AI to write stories and then giving them human names on the bylines.

They even gave them human faces.

Whether or not online publishers (or actual publishers) will listen to what people want, well…that remains to be seen.

The 1,222 Americans surveyed were diverse. They answered four questions, all surrounding the Sports Illustrated debacle.

One was whether using AI to write stories and assign them fake bylines was ethical.

Another was whether that practice should be illegal, a third regarding whether or not companies should watermark AI content, and the last pertaining specifically to watermarking AI in political ads.

The first two questions garnered the strongest responses, with 84% of responders agreeing it’s unethical, and 80% agreeing it should be illegal.

The responses crossed political party lines.

The other two had more vague responses, with there being more potential solutions and issues surrounding the idea of watermarking ads.

This is just more proof that people see AI as a basic consumer rights issue. People like to know what they’re consuming, and they don’t like to feel misled or tricked in any way.

When it comes to AI, they want to be the ones to decide whether or not they engage with it.

So if you create or present media – know that using AI without disclosing it will probably be seen as a failure of basic ethics.

Consider yourselves warned.

If you enjoyed that story, check out what happened when a guy gave ChatGPT $100 to make as money as possible, and it turned out exactly how you would expect.