Thread

Uproar in France over award-winning author accused of using AI

36 points · 87 comments · harscoat

jalev · 1790334566 · focus · HN ↗
This isn't the first high profile case of a black person being reported with accusations of using AI this year[^1][^2]. Once or twice, sure, whatever. But a third time now? It's hard to think this isn't anything but targeted, especially given this particular case the group making the "claims" are entirely anonymous.
Anyway, here's the thread from twitter if people are interested: <a href="https://x.com/Pangramed/status/2102383484027171306?s=20" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/Pangramed/status/2102383484027171306?s=20
[^1]: <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/jerry-falade-book-deal-ai-racism-b3050738.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/featu...
[^2]: <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/jason-arday-resignation-letter-ai-generated-ztdxbqhc9" rel="nofollow">https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/jason-arday-re...
1. cubefox · 1790335052 · focus · HN ↗
  Pangram is making the "claims", not some group. It is known to have a very low false positive rate, especially on long texts. And there is now also evidence of plagiarism, rather than just AI writing, in his other work (see down thread).
  1. brookst · 1790336215 · focus · HN ↗
    What’s the false positive rate multiplied by number of books in print? This seems like a fraught use of odds / stakes.
    cubefox · 1790337321 · focus · HN ↗
    The longer a text, the more entropy, the easier it is to classify. Novels are pretty long. So I suspect the false positive rate for books is far lower than for articles. And, as I said, we also have corroborating evidence now in form of cases of plagiarism discovered in his past work. Someone who has no qualms about committing plagiarism is more likely to also not have inhibitions about using LLMs to write books.
    kuerbel · 1790340156 · focus · HN ↗
    They tested passages. It is absolutely trivial to find passages that pangram classifies as 100% ai gen even if it's not the case.
    cubefox · 1790341875 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think it's trivial. I'm also pretty sure many people have tested the whole book.
    kuerbel · 1790355024 · focus · HN ↗
    Where? Can you post a link?
    cubefox · 1790409312 · focus · HN ↗
    This story is international news. It is extremely likely that many people have checked the full book using Pangram. I need not post a link for that.
    owebmaster · 1790411307 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not extremely likely, you definitely need a link to back this claim.

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