What is a Gibberish Detector?

News > January 27, 2021

What is gibberish? An example would be "Thyxqkhsitopj" entered as input in a form or messaging app. While it's easy for humans to see that's gibberish, it turns out to be much more difficult for software to detect this kind of thing.

A gibberish detector does NOT simply compare an input to a list of words. First of all, the list would have to be huge, which could cause performance issues. Second, valid input would still be rejected if there were spelling errors or new words not found in the current list.

Some would label a gibberish detector as "AI" (Artificial Intelligence) since it has to make a "decision" based on what it has "learned". While that sounds cool, and the algorithm does use some complicated math, it still relies on probability in the end.

A few people have done extensive research on detecting gibberish and they have come up with some fairly good functions. However, all of them have some issues. As usual, Robert Giordano wanted to build something better.

You can read more, and play with a working version HERE.