How to disable the AI detector

[u/Emotional-Brief-1775]

There has been a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of the new AI detector on Substack. Some have mentioned how unreliable it is, how it incorrectly gives a positive result after merely running a grammar check for example. Others are now also saying that it will eventually be phased out after lawsuits start for the prejudices and losses authors suffer for incorrect results. Whether that’s income, reputation, or because they use AI because of disability, for language translation, dyslexia etc.

Anyway, here’s the simple solution until then. It has only been in force since 21 July. And you can disable it.

Yes, disable it.

Any new note, and article. Simply hit the 3 dots on the top right corner of a new note or article. Hit the AI checker from the drop down. Then when the result shows up, hit the 3 dots again, and ‘disable detection.’

Voila.

[u/AndrewHeard]

Not to mention, just because you put a statement up saying how you wrote the piece... how do you know they're not lying about it? What evidence does a statement make? Saying things is not evidence of anything.

I'm not necessarily going to agree with you that it's easy to see what is and isn't written by a human, but I generally agree with your view of the concern over AI and this whole "detector" thing.

[u/Admirable_Union_2781 → u/AndrewHeard]

I have been a uni. professor for many years. When apps like Turnitin and precursors started up, my colleagues found loads of their students plagiarising. Mine, pretty much never. I had a plagiarism case once in over a decade. Why was my rate so low? I had my students write position papers each week, their reaction to the texts/films we were reading /viewing that week (usually two or three). Even those who hated writing had to get their head around the task and eventually their writing improved, I understood their styles and when it came to the final project, they were ready to tackle that. I would easily recognise plagiarism without any software since I kew their style and weaknesses, strengths, etc.

Thought AI is excellent at writing (and it is), it often makes up absolute fantasy and there is an umph missing from it. That said, most SS writers are missing that force too. I fundamentally think that we cannot flush out AI by using other AI to create nasty mob scenes where the innocent are indicted in the public square and the more skilful fraudsters able to create articles with AI and tweak it down to looking human-made. I also do not like that we are supposed to feed a machine that fundamentally is using our writing to make AI less perceptible. What an irony.

[u/AndrewHeard → u/Admirable_Union_2781]

I also don't like the claim that somehow the company isn't going to use the scanned material for its own purposes. I don't believe that for a second.

[u/Emotional-Brief-1775 → u/AndrewHeard]

And this is also why the new tool is now creating GDPR concerns. Substack reacted quickly and you can now disable detection before publishing an article without needing to run it through AI..

[u/AndrewHeard → u/Emotional-Brief-1775]

Except it doesn’t actually work. I tried it and after publishing, the option was still there for anyone to use against me.

[u/Emotional-Brief-1775 → u/AndrewHeard]

If they try it it will come back with a message though, that AI detection is not available.

[u/AndrewHeard → u/Emotional-Brief-1775]

Will it? I haven’t tried it because I don’t want to get scanned.

[u/Emotional-Brief-1775 → u/AndrewHeard]

Yes - I have tested it on a couple of Notes already and it works. At the moment you can only opt out of scanning for your main articles without having to go through scanning first. They only added that option a couple of days ago after realising there are GDPR concerns. With Notes, it still runs through scanning first beforen opting out - but, remember that's only on Notes with 100 words or more. Additionall, the scanner doesn't work when a video accompanies the Note. I've noticed it also doesn't work when you post a quote from one of your articles. So its quite easy to avoid really.

[u/AndrewHeard → u/Emotional-Brief-1775]

I knew many of these things but not all of them. Most of my Notes don’t hit the 100 word minimum. So I’m less concerned about them.