What is Proof of authorship?
Proof of authorship is evidence that a specific party created a work. For writing in the AI era, the strongest proof documents the composition process itself, since finished text no longer carries reliable origin signals.
Historically, authorship was proven with drafts, notebooks, timestamps, and witnesses. Version history in tools like Google Docs is the digital descendant — useful, but coarse: it shows snapshots, not composition, and can be simulated by typing in generated text.
The hierarchy of evidence runs roughly: detector scores (weakest — unreproducible estimates), timestamps and version history (circumstantial), behavioral records with signed certificates (strongest — granular, tamper-evident, and verifiable by third parties).
Behavioral certification
Behavioral certification proves content origin by recording the creator's behavior during creation — typing rhythm, pauses, revisions — and issuing a signed certificate, instead of classifying the finished output.
Content provenance
Content provenance is the documented history of a piece of content: who created it, how, when, and what changed along the way. It answers authenticity questions with records instead of after-the-fact analysis.