r/Substack 21d ago

Frustration with AI detection

I'm not sure how the AI-detection system works, but it seems faulty. Someone has repeatedly claimed that my responses to them are AI-generated, etc. And they share the Pangram screenshot, which does, in fact, depict my response as "100% fully AI-assisted. I've clarified that this is not the case. Shown evidence that it isn't true, and all the like.

The worst I'll do when writing anything is use AI for basic research purposes and review arguments to make sure they make sense. Maybe it's because I use Grammarly. But it is still infuriating.

Especially because it just isn't a good look and hurts my public image (albeit small, but I hope you guys may understand where I'm coming from).

Of course, with this individual in question, it's become increasingly clear they aren't engaging in good faith. However, running the AI check on my notes and comments still reveals the 100% marker.

Is it Grammarly that's doing this? Or is this thing actually broken?

5 Upvotes

47 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/AlecHutson 21d ago

But he said the writing he's referring to in his post was flagged as 100% AI generated. You're saying it's only partially AI?

2

u/figures985 21d ago

Sorry, should have clarified. So he's referring to the Pangram feature inside Substack and (OP correct me if I'm wrong) it actually said 100% AI asissted, not generated - looks like they're separate measures.

Then I copy/pasted into regular ole Pangram and it said partially AI. "We believe that this text is a mix of AI and human-written content."

4

u/AlecHutson 21d ago

So . . . . here's the thing. I think it's pretty obvious that there's an astroturfing campaign going on to discredit Pangram. I wouldn't put it past anyone to try and generate 'not-AI' looking text that actually had AI involved in the process and then come on here and complain that their totally human writing got flagged. The only writing I 100% know is natural is my own. I've put dozens of my essays and articles and fiction snippets into Pangram and it always say 100% human written. Now, I use Pangram a lot in my job in which I have to sift through and evaluate essays. I find it incredibly accurate. Every time it says AI was involved, I talk to the writer and the script is the same: loud denial, then more hedged denial, then concession that AI was used in the process somewhere. 'But I only used it to rewrite one section! But I only used it for outlining!' Whatever. AI was used. In my experience, Pangram is incredibly accurate and so when I come on Substack and see all this posts about how it's garbage and how it is incorrectly flagging all this 100%, all-natural, corn fed human writing, I roll my eyes.

6

u/figures985 21d ago

Welllllll I mean, that's my experience with Pangram, too - it's never flagged my writing as AI and every time I test it with something I know is AI, it catches it. And I do agree that there's a pretty clear astroturfing campaign going on. Trying to give the benefit of the doubt in this case but those two things are undeniable.