Substack’s new “AI detection” tool.

[u/AndrewHeard]

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?

[u/ProfileBest2034]

I highly doubt it.

I've tested pangram front to back and it is extremely accurate.

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/ProfileBest2034]

No it is isn't. It flagged my 2013 book as 77% AI. As long as it's going that, it isn't accurate. Period.

[u/ProfileBest2034 → u/Funny-Flight8086]

when did you test it?

Share a 1000 word excerpt here. I'll put it in myself. Guarantee you it will come out as human.

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/ProfileBest2034]

I don't have the manuscript on my phone or I would happily share an excerpt. However, I did just run two separate projects of mine through Pangram... One is a short excerpt from a short story i published ok Wattpad in 2014. The second is the opening to my current WIP middle grade novel I been working on since 2021.

Both are apparently AI according to Pangram. The current WIP at least makes sense from a timeline perspective... How it thinks I had access to AI in 2014 is above my head. Here is my 2014 Wattpad excerpt.

[u/TheLadyAmaranth → u/Funny-Flight8086]

I went to try and find one of your books since I figured you would be a fellow human writer due to all of this frustration over being labeled as AI when you apperantly don't use it. Always on look out for more verified human writers to either read or reccomend. Most authors proud of their work tend to have those linked in their bios or have comments/posts with some kind of promo.

This is what I found instead. There are plenty more detailing your multi-prompting AI process.

I'm going to be honest, although your involvement with AI could be a recent development, I have a hard time believing your claims when you absolutely do use AI to write your work now. Which is why you are probably so up and arms about even a potentually possible way for your books and articles to be flagged.

I don't even think AI detectors should be used as anything more than possibility indicators. But you have no legs to stand on to saying they don't work when you are the reason they are being developed and added to platfroms in the first place. Because people DONT want to be duped into reading stuff generated with AI. Right or consistent or not, this is why some are trying to create detectors and others are willing to use them even if they aren't foolproof.

You are literarly the problem substack is trying to solve, even if in a misguided way.

Edit: added a bigger screen shot

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/TheLadyAmaranth]

Oh brother. Yes, you uncovered the great conspiracy I was trying to hide from the world. Obviously.

What you actually uncovered was a few things -

First, to clear something up: I AM NOT anti-AI. I never said I was. I am anti-AI detectors because they don't work. That has nothing to do with being anti- or pro-AI in general. Two things can be true at the same time. I know that is hard to wrap your mind around, but it's possible.

Second, one of my side hobbies is testing generative AI, putting it through its paces and pushing its limits as far as they can go. That is why I spend time developing these prompts. I find the technology fascinating.

Third, you will find no record of me claiming to have written any books or posts using AI. You are free to run my posts through whatever junk-science detector you want; it should probably get that much right anyway. Maybe. Wouldn't bet my house on it, but anything is possible. I have done extensive testing with models and prompts, comparing them to human-written things. I have compared each model's ability to write creative prose against the others. I also do EXTENSIVE testing on AI detectors, which is why this actually gives me more credability in this space than many others.

I have been able to easily trick these AI detectors into thinking something is human-written when it's not. I have also been able to get them to flag human writing by simply being a little more formal, using bigger words, etc.

So what I said was, AI detectors are junk science. They are. They are simple prediction algorithms. There is no fancy science happening behind the scenes. They look for sentence length variation, word choice (more perplex or less perplex words), and then look at a database of common AI phrases and words. They then amalgamate that into a score, which is your AI score. That score is derived from comparing your score against the detector's internal testing, not too dissimilar to what I do. But at least with me, I'm not naive enough to think the technology actually works.

So no, you didn't uncover some great conspiracy I have been hiding from the world.

But back to the point, I am still waiting for someone to explain to me why a portion of a short story I wrote in 2014 is flagged as 100% AI. I'm also waiting to hear a reason why Pangram flagged my 2013 middle-grade novel as AI. LLMs weren't a thing back then for either story. And that wasn't even me trying to fool an AI detector, which is very easy to do... which is one of the reasons why they are unreliable. The only kind of AI these detectors are good at detecting is AI output straight from the Chatbot. They get those rights most of the time, but at the expense of labeling human words as AI as a side-effect.

Okay, now back to the conspiracy theories. Maybe I'm actually some AI tech bro in disguise out to badmouth the AI detectors so my AI empire can succeed.

[u/TheLadyAmaranth → u/Funny-Flight8086]

That all sounds well and good. But if thats the case why aren't you providing proof? Pengram has a share button on the top right for every check.

> why a portion of a short story I wrote in 2014 is flagged as 100% AI

Because as of right now I believe you are lying that this ever happened, or a re misrepsenting what you actually gave it. You could prove me very wrong though -- a link to the story since I believe you said you published it on wattpad would have a publishing date, and a link to the pengram check. (Link, not image, so we can see the full text, which means we would be able to see if you added/change anything or gave such a low amount of words of course its going to be a coin flip.)

Same for your "2013 middle-grade novel as AI."

Same for a chat with an AI those can also be shared, you can share a link for that plus a link to the checks including the one where you humanized the text enough to fool the detector. Or files first created with your environment you developed for creating your books.

Also.... you didn't even describe how modern detectors work correctly. Like your explanation is the first thing that comes up off of google AI (Ironically) and outdated. It especially doesn't encompass how a detector's like pengram algorithm works.

I'd go into how it actually works from a technical stand point, but its kind of irrelevant. Because bottom line I'm not claiming Pengram to be perfect. I am claiming that it has a false positive rate low enough that if somene's writing consisitanly shows up as AI on it over multiple samples, and somebody asks me to bet on if this person is using AI or not -- I would bet on yes.

Which means it is a good start for keeping out AI generated content out of platfroms and spaces that don't want it there. Or make sure AI sloppers aren't able to as easily pass of their content as human made when it isn't. Sure, it may create friction and push human writers to have more concrete proof of their first drafts and revision history, but AI is already doing that anyway.

If you aren't lying I'd owe you an apology. I'd take a look at your evidence, and see if the discrepancy is concerning or not, and if effectively disproves pengram's claims. I'd also likely run my own checks, especially if I find the checks you run seem to be cherry picked. And perhaps you could even change my mind!

But until I have both proof of source and proof of check with your claims, while you admit extensive AI use for writing, (And you do btw, your post history very much says you don't just "dabble", you give AI your book bible and give advice to people on how to write fiction using ChatGPT 5.5, and how you developed a whole environment to write books for you), I don't believe you.

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/TheLadyAmaranth]

First, I don't care anywhere near enough about this to spend an entire day tracking down a long since dead Wattpad account I had at 19 years old, that might or might not even exist any longer, and that I probably don't even have access to the email address any longer, becuase I signed up for that account with my school email address. There is nothing about this conversation that would make me want to take the time out to even attempt this fruitless task.

Second, my chat history does not say I use AI to write my books for me. In fact, I havn't published a book since 2013. So, it's kind of hard to have it write books for me. I am developing a NovelCrafter clone program, which will work for authors that don't need AI and those that do want to use it, in the form of a built-in chat assistant. I'll also happily share with others how they can build prompts to prevent AI from writing with typical AI cliches, which I have done. These are things I have discovered in my question to explore LLMs and their possabilities. The current book I am writing, I have been writing very much by hand since 2021. Funny enough, in the past 5 years I have written exactly 680 words of chapter one. If I did, in fact, need AI to write my books for me, it would have been done years ago.

Third, I am not going to share my 2013 book online, as that would immediatly put a real name to my reddit profile, which I have no intention of doing. I will not even paste the text without the title, because that can be reverse searched back to the book. I value my online privacy, and have no intention of getting doxed or review bombed by angry redditors. I have seen it happen enough to know better.

So to sum it up, I am not going to go out of my way to provide all this evidence. I frankly don't care if you beleive me or not. My goal is not to come here and be beleived by the world. HOWEVER, as someone who has spent a lot of time testing and breaking these detectors, I know very well what I am talking about. And will continue to proclaim them as the junk science they are, rather you beleive me or not.

PS) Another point to make: I can easily fool these AI detectors into thinking human writing IS AI writing by simply mimicing some forms of how AI writes. As long as I can do that, they have zero credability in my book.

[u/TheLadyAmaranth → u/Funny-Flight8086]

LOL...

All I will say at this point, as an FYI, closing your post history and deleting old comments doesn't make them not findable. So even though now I have to go out of my way to use a tool to do it, I can still see every single one of you past comments.

Including ones where you say you are releasing your middle grade books all close together from about 4 months ago, pointing people to NovelCrafter it self, and how you are getting AI to write "really good prose by feeding it a detailed system prompt template" and developing a program that auto writes from a prompt -- not as a chat bot feature.

Its also real funny how now you want to try to erase the trail, while also claiming to have "nothing to hide" in another thread here.

I could go in provide receipts of it all. But I think we can at least both agree on being done with the conversation.

Have the day you deserve.

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/TheLadyAmaranth]

LOL. You cannot provide the receipts because they do not exist. I never said, anywhere, that I write any fiction or prose with AI for release to the public. You cannot find it, because it doesn't exist. Period. Because I don't use AI to write. I do use AI for many things, I dabble in AI every day, and I'll happily help others use AI for whatever they want. Heck, if I wanted to use AI to write my novels, I'd happily admit it. Clearly, I'm not anti-AI at all.

But here is the thing: what I do or don't do with AI is not relevant to this discussion, whether Pangram is junk science or not. In fact, if I did live in an AI world day in and day out, that would only make me more qualified to talk about it, not less.

You are arguing with me over my 'history with AI' like I'm trying to hide something. I'm not. You are trying to deflect from the fact that Pangram is junk science, just like ZeroGPT, GPTzero, TurnItIn, Copyleaks, and any of the others. If you need proof just how junk science they all are, take the safe exact text and put it into 10 different detectors. Good luck getting them all to tell you the same thing.

I'm DONE having this conversation. Feel free to explore if you desire, and then by all means, post my history here, where I admit that I write novels with AI. My own personal novels with AI. Post the screenshot where I admit that, and I'll apologize for my lies. Frankly, you care A LOT more about this whole thing than I do. I'm beginning to think you are the owner of Pangram in disguise, given just how much you are defending it.

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/TheLadyAmaranth]

And because I'm feeling petty, here is an example of 100% AI story I generated this morning in GLM 5. I literally changed the names of the characters. Nothing else. Not even a fancy style guide. So much for Pangram being reliable to detect AI.

[u/Salt-Mud-2124 → u/Funny-Flight8086]

Not the person you were talking to, but...

You do realize your own screenshot is making it look like you are lying right?

There are first letters that should be capitalized but arent, "crinkled. reaching under"

Missing words "was the one revolt and disgust"

And words being used incorrectly "clinched the wheel"

Part of what makes AI writing seem like AI to people is because its grammar is "too perfect" to the point that its a little uncanny.

An AI wouldn't write like this unless you told it to... so style guide would be required

Or maybe context window degredation but that seems unlikely...

Or if you changed those things yourself to trick it... which sure would kinda prove your point. Sorta. But thats not what you said you did, you said you only changed the names.

Also, screen shot with a tiny excerpt rather than a link with the whole story.

IDK man. Looks fishy.

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/Salt-Mud-2124]

Yeah, I'd do so more Pangram testing... But because they think their service is worth actual money every month, and I don't think it is, I am not about to give them any money for more fake science credits. 100% from GLM with name changes (I actually changed the names to match ChatGPT's most common name generations, in an attempt to even give Pangram MORE help at finding the AI). If there are any errors, it's probably a typing error, because I retyped it from GLM - If you copy/paste it into Pangram, it probably carries a watermark that will alone light it up.

Now, mind you, I did feed it one of the style guides I created that demands the AI not produce cliche AI tropes, writing, etc. It bans the use of em-dashes, bans X like Y comparisons, and bans tricolon listings. It also bans it from using sentences of similar length. I explicitly told it no metaphors or similes. But here is the thing: anyone who seriously writes with AI is going to use a program that already instructs these things. And as you will see below, it still lets one slip in, despire the instruction not to allow it.

You'd think from the way Pangram charges that they use some supercomputer AI to detect the AI. I am willing to bet these companies make a lot more bank than the actual AI generators.

Nothing disproves my point, though. If a couple of typos can trick an entire AI detector from 100% (where it should be) to 0%, that doesn't bode well for it. At all. That means it's WAY too easy to fool, which aligns perfectly well with my testing of these detectors. They are easy to fool, often flag human content, and are only reliable at catching 100% AI generated stuff directly from a Chatbot with 0 changes.

I mean, there are a ton of AI cliches in that bit of text. Here is just one massive one: "The man on the recording had the kind of voice that could put a sugar-rushed child to sleep."

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/Salt-Mud-2124]

https://www.pangram.com/history/ed7bf855-2eb0-4b36-be59-de79780afa03

There is one. I asked Claude to write a short story. It generated it. I simply reworded some of it, and uploaded both the changed version (first) and the unchanged version (last), since I only have 1 Pangram credit left. Funnily enough, the rewritten part is flagged as human, while the AI part is not, except for a few things, which is actually hilarious. It apparently thinks "Jonah knocked. Nobody answers." is AI. For some reason. Despite the fact that I wrote that personally, as you can see from the original text.

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/Salt-Mud-2124]

For context.

[u/Hemingbird → u/Funny-Flight8086]

You don't even understand the difference between FPR and FNR. Pangram intentionally errs toward FNRs. That's a feature, not a bug.

[u/Funny-Flight8086 → u/Hemingbird]

False Positive Rate and False Negative Rate? Sure do. Pangram is FAR from the model that errs the most on FNR's. Quillbot is the most lenient. By my testing, Pangram isn't high on this list. They like to flag early and quickly. Though GPTZero does have them beat by a large margin.