New Delhi, April 8 -- Earlier this year, a researcher in India who is on the autism spectrum sent in a short abstract for an academic publication and was told that a sentence in it sounded like AI. No evidence or basis was offered. Just the standard warning: if AI had been used, it had to be disclosed.

She had used none. She later told me the abstract was hurried and not her best. But after that message, the exchange was no longer about her idea. It was about whether she had written it.

She withdrew.

When we spoke later, she said the sentence may have drawn suspicion for a simple reason: it was abstract. Abstracts compress. They name concepts before they can unfold them. In a small space, there is little room for scene, example or evid...