A generic answer has too many possible authors

“What is your favorite movie?” looks personal, but it can be answered with a title and one familiar reason. The reply does not have to preserve a choice, explain a tradeoff, or connect to anything said later.

The problem is not that a short answer sounds artificial. The problem is that the question creates very few observable decisions. A human can give a polished stock answer; a model can give a casual one. Style alone does not settle the source.

A diagram turning a generic question into constrain, depend, and return steps
Figure 1 · Each step creates a detail that the next question can reuse.

Three moves that create more to inspect

  • Constrain the first answer. Ask for a choice between imperfect options, a sequence, or one concrete example.
  • Make the next question depend on it. Refer to the answer instead of switching to an unrelated prompt.
  • Return after a detour. Revisit one detail later and ask whether the earlier reasoning still holds.

These moves do not identify a person or a model. They simply create a longer, connected exchange with more choices to compare.

Keep the comparison fair

Use the same time limit, topic, and ladder shape for every witness. If one side gets a vague opener and the other gets three tailored follow-ups, the game is measuring the prompts as much as the answers.

Human or Not compresses its live game into a two-minute conversation followed by a guess. Turing Test Live gives an interrogator two hidden witnesses and reveals their identities after questioning. The shared structural lesson is that a sequence of replies creates the evidence; the label belongs at the end.

A question thread map showing an answer reused in two later questions
Figure 2 · A thread is useful when later questions depend on earlier answers.

Quick check before you send a question

  1. Could the reply be copied into almost any conversation?
  2. Does the question require one concrete choice or detail?
  3. Will the reply change what you ask next?
  4. Can you return to the same detail later?

If the first answer is yes and the other three are no, the opener is probably generic.

Sources and provenance

All 12 upgrades in the lab were written for this page on October 13, 2026. They are original game prompts, not quotations from the sources.

This page is not a detector

It does not analyze a reply, contact a model, upload text, or decide who wrote anything. It only helps players write less generic questions.