Broken enumeration
- Id
- broken-enumeration
- Status
- Active
- Severity
- high
- Detection
- deterministic
- Evidence grade
- corroborated
- Languages
- en
- Added
- 2026-08-15
- Updated
- 2026-08-15
Currently signals low-effort writing.
What it is
A numbered list whose numbering repeats, resets, or contradicts the count the text promised. The Sports Illustrated articles that Futurism reported in November 2023, and that CNN covered when the site pulled them, included a personal-finance piece whose numbered list labelled every item number one. The specimen below is written for this entry. The published text is not reproduced here.
Why it reads as machine-made
Numbering is the one part of a list a reader trusts without checking it. When it breaks, the piece was assembled rather than written, and nobody read it back before it went out. Severity is high because this is not a matter of taste: a proofreader catches it in a single pass, so its presence says something about the pipeline rather than about the prose.
Specimens
1. Check the chain with a wear gauge. 1. Replace the brake pads. 1. Re-tape the bars.
1. Check the chain with a wear gauge. A stretched chain wears the cassette, which costs more to replace than the chain does. 2. Replace the brake pads once the wear grooves have gone. 3. Re-tape the bars, because old cork slips in the wet.
The repair fixes the numbering and gives each item the reason it exists. Numbering that a renderer generates has to be checked in the rendered output, not in the source.
How it is detected
- Pattern
- ^[ \t]*1[.)][ \t]+\S[\s\S]{0,400}?^[ \t]*1[.)][ \t]+\S
- Flags
- gm
- Scope
- document
Who writes this way legitimately
Markdown authors write every item as 1. on purpose, because the renderer numbers the list for them, so this rule has to run against rendered text and never against source. Content management systems mangle list markup on import routinely, and pasting between editors can renumber a list with nobody touching the words. Legal drafting numbers clauses as 1.1 and 1.2 under a single 1, which this pattern leaves alone by design. Check the source markup and the publishing path before treating a hit as anything at all about the writing.
Model attribution
No vendor documents the behaviour. The failure is usually in the pipeline rather than in the model: markup survives generation and does not survive the paste into a publishing system.
Status history
| Date | Status | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-15 | Active | Documented in the November 2023 reporting on fabricated bylines, where a numbered list labelled every item number one, and still turning up in published material. Nothing in the record shows it fading, because it is a review failure rather than a writing habit. |
Sources
- 01Futurism, Sports Illustrated published articles by fake AI-generated writerspressaccessed 2026-08-14
- 02CNN, Sports Illustrated deletes articles with fake author namespressaccessed 2026-08-14
- 03Wikipedia: Signs of AI writingcommunityaccessed 2026-08-14
CC BY 4.0 / The AI Tells Index, feedsquad.com/ai-tells