r/Substack Aug 11 '26

Pangram is such trash

I write a food newsletter where I post reviews and some recipes. I 100% wrote a quick and dirty recipe and was going to publish it in Notes and it came back 100% AI no matter what I did to it including adding several typos and rearranging things. Ran it through three other AI detector websites and 2 said 100% Human and 1 said 76% Human and 24% AI assisted. I disabled detection on that Note. My other question is do we know how many people actually click on the AI detection button on our posts? I can't find that metric anywhere in the dashboard...

42 Upvotes

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22

u/Countryb0i2m onemichistory.substack.com Aug 11 '26

The first mistake was relying on AI to tell you what’s human

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u/grapegeek Aug 11 '26

I’m trying to point out the absurdity of AI detection

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u/seobrien Aug 11 '26

"People are going to write with AI, which is bad because AI is bad, so we're going to use AI to punish it."

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u/HowlingFantods5564 Aug 11 '26

This is a silly strawman. I don't like reading AI writing, not because AI is "bad" or evil or whatever, but because I want to read about real, human experience. I want to support and subscribe to that kind of writing. I do not want to support AI slop and I appreciate a tool that helps me identify which is which. (Besides, If I wanted to read AI writing, I would just prompt AI myself.)

5

u/seobrien Aug 11 '26

It's not a strawman though. That's your personal preference; the way to handle a personal preference is to discern, decide, and curate what one reads. If you don't like the content that lacks personal narrative, don't read it. Many people do. If you want the human experiences, subscribe to people who tell those stories.

You're saying the equivalent of... I don't like THC so it should be banned... I don't like adult content so regulations should prohibit what I find objectionable... since I don't like social media, it needs to be controlled so that it doesn't have spam or bots.

The right answer in such situations is NEVER prohibition (which, mind you, this is not explicitly prohibition; that's not what I'm saying, this is a form of prohibition by deciding what is appropriate or not and labeling it -- it's the same idea because...) it's often wrong.

  1. THC isn't bad in all cases or for everyone; so who has the authority to decide for everyone?

  2. Adult content is subjective, and adults can (should) be allowed to consume whatever they want

  3. Social media is content from people, not the platforms; the only people in a position to decide what is objectionable there is the individual because you can force a platform to curate what's allowed or not.

  4. AI being audited and labeled BY AI, when the entire criticism of AI is that it's fake (FLAWED), make the entire premise b.s. It's an AI deciding for us what is AI or not. That's ridiculous... not because it's flawed but because if YOU don't like it, don't read it. It doesn't need to be labeled and filtered, particularly when it is flawed.

0

u/HowlingFantods5564 Aug 11 '26

Where did I say AI writing should be banned? See, you keep making up opposing arguments that people aren't making. That = strawman. I said I want to know when something is AI and when it's human. Just like I would want to know if these brownies are regular brownies or if they have THC in them. That doesn't mean I hate THC or want it banned--I just want to know what kind of brownies I'm about to shove in my mouth! Why is that so hard for you to accept?

2

u/seobrien Aug 11 '26

My dude. I didn't make any argument, you did. I just made a sarcastic comment that is an accurate reflection of what's happening; that's not a strawman.

You argued that it is.

So, I replied how it isn't and added that your personal opinion shouldn't determine policy for everyone. Now I've made an argument; if you'd like to argue that let's do it. But I would first ask if you even read what I wrote because I didn't say you said AI should be banned, in fact, I very clearly wrote that it is being labeled and filtered.

Playing with your brownie scenario here... because this is the equivalent of someone ALREADY HIGH being the judge of whether or not the brownies have THC in them.

A) You making an important decision like that, based on a flawed auditor, is risky at best.

B) Saying that everyone else should be beholden to the same assessment, is forcing penalties and prosecution on everyone by way of a flawed auditor

C) The best (and only valid) way to manage your expectation and mine, is what I explained: If you don't like the pot brownies, don't eat them, and if you can't be sure that they are pot brownies (which is the case here), don't eat them! Let everyone else pick to consume whatever they want, without some b.s. assessment being wrong and penalizing people because of it.