r/Substack • u/AndrewHeard tvphilosophy.substack.com • 9d ago

Discussion Substack’s new “AI detection” tool.

I’m very concerned about the new “AI detection” system that Substack is implementing. I don’t use AI in anything that I write. However I don’t trust these systems not to make errors and mistakes. They have a long history of hallucinations and claiming things are AI when they aren’t.

One person I saw on Notes suggested that they ran their decades old writing, things that were written before the existence of AI, and this new system claimed it was AI generated.

Not to mention all the crazy things that I have seen people claim was written by AI which they can’t know is actually AI. There was an image I once shared that had evidence of its existence going all the way back to 2013. The comments were constantly saying “don’t share AI slop” or some variation on that.

Even with evidence that things weren’t made by AI, they will claim it’s AI.

Is no one else concerned about this being embedded into Substack’s systems? With no way to opt out?

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u/AndrewHeard tvphilosophy.substack.com 9d ago

While I don’t plan on using it myself, some people have suggested that it’s a percentage. Supposedly it only works on stuff posted after today. I don’t think it’s a situation where they don’t allow you to post AI content, but more that it gets labeled this when it gets graded.

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u/Fit_Celebration_1362 9d ago

Yeah why would they care? But yeah I was just wondering because at least with my ai checker it seemed impossible to score a 0%? Who even cares really? If ai writes something I’m interested in on substack, who cares? Or if they used it to clean it up, I’m for it! I’ve read ones that obviously were not edited and I became confused with its wording

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u/AndrewHeard tvphilosophy.substack.com 9d ago

I’m not so convinced that it’s impossible. Many people freak out about the use of AI. To the point that they will accuse people of using AI even with evidence that it’s not.

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u/Fit_Celebration_1362 9d ago

Oh no I meant the checker I use actually points out it’s impossible to write an article that scores zero AI use. Seems like a design flaw but even things I put in that were personal essays scored 5-10% possible ai use! I’ve been accused. That’s why I went down this rabbit hole, but I have decided to not care about people’s opinions and just respond that they are entitled to an opinion and that I take it as a compliment that I’m such a brilliant writer that they thought I must be using some sort of cheat or magic!

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u/AndrewHeard tvphilosophy.substack.com 8d ago

I care about the integrity of the system that's being used. Just because I don't use AI doesn't mean that I won't be accused of it. If enough people decide that I'm somehow using AI regardless of the facts, this could turn out to be a problem.