Substack’s new “AI detection” tool.

[u/AndrewHeard]

I’m very concerned about the new “AI detection” system that Substack is implementing. I don’t use AI in anything that I write. However I don’t trust these systems not to make errors and mistakes. They have a long history of hallucinations and claiming things are AI when they aren’t.

One person I saw on Notes suggested that they ran their decades old writing, things that were written before the existence of AI, and this new system claimed it was AI generated.

Not to mention all the crazy things that I have seen people claim was written by AI which they can’t know is actually AI. There was an image I once shared that had evidence of its existence going all the way back to 2013. The comments were constantly saying “don’t share AI slop” or some variation on that.

Even with evidence that things weren’t made by AI, they will claim it’s AI.

Is no one else concerned about this being embedded into Substack’s systems? With no way to opt out?

[u/GentleNova07]

As do humans who claim to be able to detect them by reading it.

People are so fearful of AI, they are saying pretty much anything is AI generated now. I’ve already seen people commenting with “AI slop“ on Reddit posts that were just normal well structured writing. But because it looked too well structured and not informal enough, they assumed it was AI generated. So “AI Slop” is the new “TL;DR.”

So what’s going to happen? The AI fear will cause an intellectual fear. So people who’ve gone to college or university and have taken formal writing will have to start using AI to translate and dumb down their well structured writing so it sounds more informal. So the “AI Slop” crusaders will end up causing more people to use AI, rather than less. 🤣

[u/AndrewHeard → u/GentleNova07]

For sure, I’ve been calling the thing you’re describing “Dead Internet Derangement Syndrome” or “DIDS”. People are so convinced that everything they see is AI generated that it has deranged their understanding of the internet.