How are you going to identify if the user is using AI in his posts?
I will not disclose any accurate source for my claim but there is actually no way to find that out if someone is using AI, since there are services out there for free making and editing your AI generated content in a way to avoid 99+% detection.
IMO anyone caught using AI generated content as their own should be banned, I wouldn't want to engage in a discussion where the other person is not really a person.
We want to engage and discuss with real people with their own real life achievements. Just as an example, I would like to read the posts of gmaxwell to know him better and more, just imagine if I wanted to follow him as a role-model and later find out or not to find out he was actually an AI behind the account.
What I don't like about this subject is the fact that AI could greatly influence us in the long term without us realizing it.
The same way you wouldn't like to communicate with a person that doesn't write correct grammar or keeps repeating phrases in their content is how AI writing works, users vary. If a person is skilled; knows how to utilize AI like chatGPT their response will be as good as that of a good writer. Additionally, the app can be asked to insert synonyms to a keyword to avoid repetitions. Also, every technology offers a new opportunity for users on the internet, in future skilled Chatgpt users can get hired to do a great writing job including editing.
Moreover, you are not communicating with a bot, as an AI doesn't have a brain it's controlled by humans, it just hurts that the next person is using a third-party app to communicate with you making it easier for him to write, while you chat genuinely with your brain. However, it's sad that AI is hitting hard on the internet, and mainly focusing the heat on writing communities, but in the long run, nothing can be done about it, imagine ChatGPT has over a million users within a short period. It's a technology that needs adoption, and writers don't seem to like the idea, as if it'll take their jobs from them, which is not true, contrarily it'll make their jobs easier.
In a forum like this, it'll be hard not to detect AI-generated contents if the user didn't amend it, but if the changes are correctly done Chatgbt can be said to be used for research purposes - easing the research process for a user. If he edits and publishes the thread, it's not completely AI-generated. You can say to be communicating with a bot if the user published the generated post without proofreading it. Moreover, those answers provided by chatGPT are generated from google, and plagiarism detection all depends on the user and the kind of query they gave to the bot. Like the moderator said; if the user is skilled with the use of AI that it doesn't break any rules then it is not a problem in any form.
I'd suggest that an AI detector is added to the forum to help users crosscheck if a thread is poorly generated by an AI, such a thread can be reported to mods pointing out how it broke a rule in the forum. It'll ease the stress for moderators and keep the community as clean as usual. Finally, what need is it to pay to write in the forum? soon these AI writing apps will get expensive to use regarding the speed people are signing up to utilize them.