About

Ductus Project publishes writing and checks the hand behind it. Written by people, checked in the open, honest about its limits.

Why it exists

More and more of what we read is generated, and the page alone no longer tells you whether a person created the writing. Ductus is an experiment in giving writers a way to show that they did. Ductus is the palaeographer’s word for the order, direction and speed of the strokes that form a handwritten letter.

The human made mark

A post with the hand mark beside its byline has passed the human made checks:

Crafted by a person in the Ductus editor. The writing process looked like composing, not copying.

That is the claim. The mark is not proof, and it does not show that no AI was used at any stage, but it does show that the writing took shape in the editor the way a person’s writing does: composed, revised and given time. It is experimental.

The checks will sometimes get it wrong in both directions, and we keep measuring how often.

How writing is checked

• You write in the Ductus editor. With your permission, it keeps a private record of how the piece came together: the rhythm of the typing, and the edits along the way.
• Chunks of writing are evaluated for AI generated content, and a decision is made based on the overall score your writing receives.
• When you publish, the post goes live at once. We then look at how it was written and at the finished text, and ask one question: does this look like someone composing, or someone copying?
• If it passes, the mark is sealed to that exact text in the database. If a single character changes, the mark comes off.
• Anyone can paste copied text into Verify to see whether it matches a post holding the mark.

We don’t publish the details of the checks, because keeping them private makes them harder to game. For now the mark is for writing in English written on a laptop or desktop. Dictation and assistive input may not pass yet.

Your privacy

Your writing record is never shown publicly. We keep it for 90 days, then delete it and keep only summary measurements. Only the admin can view it, and only to review a dispute you raise. You can turn recording off in Settings, or delete your account and everything in it.

If we got it wrong

If you wrote a post yourself and it didn’t pass, you can dispute the result from the post within 90 days.