Thoughts about using an AI checker for plagiarism

 A writer friend tried using several different plagiarism  checkers to make sure she wasn't copying anybody else's words or sentences.  I responded:

I have some thoughts: In the first place - lots of people have the same idea, but it's the execution that is solely yours. Yes, you use the same words as the rest of us, and some phrases will be the same or similar to others. But it's the paragraph, the emotion behind the writing, the emotion that is created in the reader that is solely yours.

My husband and I are/ were both writers. But our styles couldn't have been more different. I stopped letting him read my work until after it was published because he would get out a pen and try to edit my writing to be more like his style. 

We both wrote nonfiction (and I also wrote fiction). But his articles about car repair and using computers were directed at adult audiences who used his writings as instruction manuals. Whereas I was writing for children, making history interesting, plus writing picture books to entertain youngsters. I'm sure we both used similar words/ similar phrases, after all, we lived together and influenced each other. 

In other words -- you do you.  

Another thought - one which you already know. Ideas are out there and (for example) oftentimes my work has been rejected because it was too similar to something the publisher already had. (we already have a pumpkin book) So, of course some AI programs would mark us as plagiarizing, when no, the complete work actually was original to you and to me. (It turned out that MY pumpkin book was actually very different from the one that publisher had in the works.)

We will use the same words as someone else. "green grass" "blue sky" We will use same or similar sentences, because there is just a limited way we can describe things. 

Unfortunately, AI can't judge the effectiveness of a scene, a paragraph, a sentence to convey what you are portraying in your writing.