Did a Human Write This?
5/1/202651 min
What happens when the majority of content on the internet tips over into AI slop? On this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel talks to Max Spero, the co-founder of Pangram, an AI-detection company. They discuss how AI-detection tools work and how effective they can be at identifying what’s made by humans and what comes from a chatbot. They explore the cultural concerns around authenticity in the large language model era, and whether detection can keep up as models improve. The pair discuss how the speed of AI development and synthetic content threatens to degrade the quality of human writing and pollute the internet—and what, if anything, can be done to stop it. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
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Speaker 30:29
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Max Spero· Guest0:59
I want to see people using AI to cure cancer and, you know, make senior care easier and make all of our lives better, and I also don't want to see AI polluting the internet. So sort of like there's these two sides, and I wanna see the good side of AI flourish, and I wanna help mitigate the harmful effects of AI as much as possible.
Charlie Warzel· Host1:20
[instrumental music] I'm Charlie Warzel, and this is Galaxy Brain, a show where today we're going to talk about the flood of