flawcraft

leave it in. it's human.

/ˈflɔːˌkrɑːft/  noun and verb

1. noun The deliberate addition of human imperfections, such as a typo, an uneven edge or a skipped beat, to a piece of work so it isn't mistaken for something generated by AI. “Her essay was too clean, so she added a little flawcraft before sending it.”
2. verb flawcraft, flawcrafted, flawcrafting. To make work look less perfect on purpose, as proof that a person made it. “He flawcrafted his cover letter: no em dashes, one lowercase i, a joke that only half lands.”

Origin

A blend of flaw and craft, coined in 2026. As AI-generated text, images and music became hard to tell apart from human work, polish stopped being a sign of effort and started looking suspicious. Small, visible mistakes became a way to say “a person did this.”

Flawcraft in the wild

• Avoiding em dashes because readers associate them with chatbots
• Leaving a typo in a post instead of fixing it
• Recording drums slightly off the grid
• Brushstrokes, crops and lighting that are a little uneven
• Handwritten notes on otherwise digital work