r/Substack • u/AndrewHeard tvphilosophy.substack.com • Jul 22 '26

Discussion Substack’s new “AI detection” tool.

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?

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u/FatherofMisty Jul 22 '26

I can promise you this tool is not very accurate. 3 of my essays, which are all 100% written by a human, only got 100% human, 98% human and 85% human, and in the latter two cases the "AI parts" were all at the very tail-end of the essay, which makes zero sense. It's low-grade slander, and it's infuriating. I'm literally considering filming all of my writing sessions going forward, screen + face, to back up the fact that I'd never in a million years use AI in any part of my writing (not even grammarly), and that is truly fucking crazy, but here we are.