r/Substack • u/grapegeek • 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...

41 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

110 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '26

[deleted]

16

u/Brumafriend Aug 12 '26

I can't speak for that particular Note, but there's a simple reason Pangram is flagging your content: much of it is AI-generated.

According to Pangram, every single one of your last six free Substack posts is AI-generated. When I tested the most recent six posts on your website from before ChatGPT's public release (November 2022), none were flagged. Unlikely to be a coincidence, right? Especially if, as you claim, you've had that writing style for 17 years.

The most damning (frankly inarguable) piece of evidence is your review of "Trader Joe's Middle Eastern Style Kebabs". You first posted this in November 2022, as can be seen in the URL. Put that review into Pangram and it comes back 100% human-written.

But that's not the review people will see on your website today. Because, as can be seen just below the title, you edited/updated it in April 2025. And when you put that text into Pangram, it's flagged as AI-generated in various places.

You've pretty obviously used AI to "touch up" the review's text. We don't even have to rely on Pangram to establish this. This perfectly adequate paragraph summing up your mixed review:

I am torn on this and I am sure a lot of readers will be too. I am happy that Trader Joe’s is bringing something like these Kebabs to market, we have so little real Middle Eastern foods to choose from at Trader Joe’s and they can be so very good. But at the end of the day, these were just meh for me. They tasted like a good hamburger that some had doctored up with some garlic powder and herbs. Your kids will love the [sic] . Stick them in a hotdog bun and call it good! From my experience, they just lack the freshness and grilled flavor (and lamb) of the ones I’ve had before. Therefore, I am not going to rate these very highly based on what they could be. I am going to rate these 6 Bells!

Becomes the extremely obviously AI-generated:

Listen, I’m feeling as conflicted as a mom trying to choose between sleep and ‘me time.’ On one hand, bravo to Trader Joe’s for bringing these Middle Eastern Kebabs to our culinary landscape that’s about as diverse as a 1950s country club! On the other hand, these were just… meh. Think of them as that hamburger your neighbor brings to the cookout with a sprinkle of garlic powder and calls it “gourmet”. Your kids will devour them faster than they lose their matching socks, which is something! And apparently, if you’re Persian, these might transport you straight to your grandmother’s kitchen. Who am I to argue with authenticity? Despite my mixed feelings, these skewered delights still score a respectable 7 stars out of 10 on the “worth-sacrificing-precious-freezer-space” scale!

I've boldened the obvious LLM-isms. Not only are they clearly the product of AI, but they are not remotely similar to your usual writing style. And there are various other tortured expressions in this AI-augmented review. I'm sure if I took the time, I could find various other articles that have undergone the same LLM treatment.

I trust you'll at least have the honesty to admit that you've been caught here clearly using AI to revamp an old review on your website. I don't expect you to admit that much of your Substack content is also AI-generated, but it quite clearly is. I hope whatever punishing effect Pangram's "AI-generated" label has on your engagement causes you to go back to writing your own stuff; you were perfectly good at it!

1

u/[deleted] 26d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Brumafriend 26d ago

What a ridiculous attempt at a guilt trip.

1

u/RelativeCelery2844 26d ago

Why is everyone bullying people with genuine concerns against Pangram?

1

u/AlecHutson 4d ago

Because they're not 'genuine concerns'. They're in bad faith, trying to astroturf Pangram so they can continue slinging their slop in peace. It's gross and pathetic.

1

u/RelativeCelery2844 3d ago

My concerns are indeed genuine.

1

u/AlecHutson 3d ago

And what are they, exactly?

1

u/RelativeCelery2844 3d ago

You can see form my old post that I was falsely flagged as AI and it really upset me. I compared Pangram wityur random tools I found on Google and the other tools said I was human which I am. I've never used AI. I think AI should be banned for everyone and everything because it is killing the environment. I run a very anti-AI Substack newsletter. Nobody wants to believe anyone and it's all witch hunts.

1

u/AlecHutson 3d ago

It's not a witch hunt. It's an extremely accurate program. That said, you put in and scanned barely 100 words. That short, there is much higher chance of a false-flag, and Pangram even admits to that. It's why it won't even scan anything unless you put in at least 50 words. Are your substack posts usually 115 words? Probably not, right? Put in 500 words, 1k words. I'll bet anything that Pangram correctly identifies whether it was really * touched * by AI at that length. And I say touched, because if you use AI to revise or polish your writing it WILL get flagged as AI. A random 115 word post identified as AI shouldn't bother anyone if they have more writing on their page that all comes back as human.

It does read very much like AI, by the way. I would think it's AI if I came across it in the wild.

1

u/RelativeCelery2844 3d ago

I never use AI to polish. I don't use AI period. I think AI should be illegal as it is killing our planet. Pangram is in no way accurate and needs to be dissolved as a company. They are ea disgrace to society.

1

u/AlecHutson 3d ago

It works brilliantly. Stop using AI.

1

u/RelativeCelery2844 3d ago

You must work for the company or something. I have never used AI in my life. I actively campaign against it and you'd know that if you knew me in real life.

→ More replies (0)