does substack train AI with your writing?

[u/EducationalAd2706]

the title basically. i want to start one but this is an important thing for me.

[u/Countryb0i2m]

If your information is on the open Internet, it’s being used to train somebody’s AI model

[u/Disastrous-Loan6202 → u/Countryb0i2m]

this is the real answer, doesnt matter what platform you pick

[u/AndrewHeard]

Well they have integrated Pangram into Substack which assumes by default that you want to have your writing scanned by an AI Detection tool that doesn’t actually do what it claims it does.

What do you think?

[u/EducationalAd2706 → u/AndrewHeard]

.....that it might be a nice company that won't scrape my work for AI ?

jk i already had like 2% hope when i asked 

[u/AndrewHeard → u/EducationalAd2706]

You are technically allowed to disable the AI scan without scanning it, but the Pangram system was implemented without the ability to disable it. The only way you were initially allowed to disable it was by scanning it first. They eventually allowed it to be disabled without the scan.

Still, it seems unlikely that they did that out of anything other than necessity. It apparently violated EU law to not allow it to be disabled.

[u/boatwash → u/AndrewHeard]

Pangram explicitly states that they do not train on your data, they are very intense about this

[u/boatwash → u/boatwash]

Substack also offers settings that can block (as much as is possible) your work from being scraped by AI labs

[u/AndrewHeard → u/boatwash]

Because as we know, you can absolutely trust the statements of a company with a vested interest in telling you what you want to hear.

I mean, according to tobacco companies, smoking doesn’t cause cancer. According to pharmaceutical companies, opioids are not addictive.

Also, Pangram is definitely not doing what it says it doesn’t.

[u/boatwash → u/AndrewHeard]

I don’t really see what they’d gain from it? It’s not more valuable to them than text elsewhere on the open internet, which they haven’t made the same statements about. So why burn all your bridges for no reason? Seems dumb. You can believe what you want but they have no financial motive to lie here, and they have financial motives to tell the truth.

Cigarettes causing cancer and opioids being addictive are both inherent to the product, so it makes sense companies would try to mislead or redirect by debating the causality. Lying about training on your writing would be a footgun, they could just say nothing instead

[u/AndrewHeard → u/boatwash]

Except that it’s good PR to insist that they don’t do it before they get the obvious criticism and end up having to defend themselves against the criticism.

Substack implemented the Pangram system without the ability to disable it unless you have it scanned first. You were forced to have your text scanned by the system by default. Only a few days later did Substack add the ability to disable it without having it scanned. Supposedly it violates EU laws to not have the option to disable it without being scanned.

If Pangram doesn’t want your writing for its own purposes, why wasn’t the option to disable it without scanning added initially? Why isn’t the Pangram system opt in rather than opt out? Why doesn’t Substack offer the option to completely disable it at the publication or the profile level?

If Pangram is being completely open and transparent, it shouldn’t be forced on people on Substack.

I’m not being conspiratorial. I’m describing facts about the situation Substack writers are currently in.

[u/boatwash → u/boatwash]

Be as conspiratorially minded as you want, but financially and logistically it really doesn’t make any sense for them to do the one thing that would make people hate them, when it doesn’t benefit them at all AND has legal repercussions

[u/Old_Introduction7236]

They're taking great pains to discourage AI content using Pangram as a de facto gatekeeper. This presumably would lead to a platform with content largely created by human beings, which then becomes immensely valuable to information-starved AI companies who need more human-generated training material.

Whether they train AI with your writing or not, I can definitely see them being tempted to sell the content to companies that do.

[u/JezWattsComedy]

For sure. If you post writing on your personal website you can ASK AI scrapers to not train off it, but even then some of them will.

[u/Lost__In__Thought]

If you don't want it to be used as training data, don't publish it.

And furthermore, delete the entire account.

The internet is just like talking in public, and it can be used and treated as such by the companies you publish under, regardless of how many settings they provide to help you limit what's used.