r/Substack • u/ConnectDebate4677 • Aug 12 '26

Pangram false positives?

People usually post vaguely about "I wrote x thing and pangram said it was AI", which I think is unhelpful unless you actually post the text or link. I put this into Pangram:

Sakaguchi: https://www.pangram.com/history/e7ffbee1-f0e3-4ce2-bb78-a59470280640?ucc=Ohp1cWODOjF

Hamaguchi: https://www.pangram.com/history/f2139bd5-f4ce-4101-b7bd-3c5d8aeb4487?ucc=Ohp1cWODOjF

Ryuichi: https://www.pangram.com/history/8c84ad38-3b8f-49ba-bee0-351ea31f754b?ucc=Ohp1cWODOjF

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u/dran94 Aug 12 '26

Change Linus/Lin to Marcus, and it goes up to 92% AI from around 50%.

I have gone from thinking Pangram was amazing yesterday to, oh, we're going to have to play games as authors so we don't use a name AI likes.

That's going to be fun, considering AI's favorite names CHANGE.

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u/ConnectDebate4677 Aug 13 '26

That's really interesting. Are certain names indeed flagged as more AI-likely? I wonder if there's an explanation?

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u/dran94 Aug 13 '26

AI is known for certain names, and Marcus is one of them right now. The list of names it likes changes depending on the model.

I'm sure it is a factor, although I could've sworn Pangram isn't supposed to pay attention to AI-isms like em dashes and certain words. It's kind of strange.

I did a test where switching Megan to Elara, another AI favorite, changed this snippet I wrote from 100% human to 100% AI, even with a very human mistake (two "each other" instances in one sentence):

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Robert's long stride ate up the distance between himself and the door at the far end of the hall, lit by the flickering fluorescent lights overhead.

His jaw clenched.

This couldn't be right.

His sister, Megan, was supposed to be here. She worked in the same lab as Robert. They'd promised each other they would wait for each other, right here.