AI Detectors Won’t Save Us
ICYMI
Slate Podcasts
3.9 • 800 Ratings
🗓️ 30 May 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Ed Zitron, host of the podcast Better Offline and a certified hater of AI. After yet another AI writing scandal, this time involving the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story prize, Kate and Ed take a closer look at tools like Pangram that claim to detect AI writing with 99% accuracy. But if we can’t ever be sure, then no one knows what’s true at all—and that’s exactly how these institutions like it.
This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, I'm Kate Lindsay, and you're listening to I-C-Y-M-I, or in case you missed it, Slate's podcast about internet culture. |
| 0:21.5 | And today, we are welcoming to the show, Ed Zittron. |
| 0:24.6 | Welcome, Ed. |
| 0:25.5 | Thank you for having me. |
| 0:26.7 | Ed is a writer. |
| 0:28.1 | He's the host of the Better Offline Podcast, and he is, perhaps most importantly for this episode, |
| 0:33.3 | an on-record hater of AI companies and generative AI in general. |
| 0:38.1 | There is one specific thing I want to ask you about off the bat because it is a recent |
| 0:43.5 | trend that is happening at college and university graduations. Do you know what I'm about |
| 0:48.8 | to bring up? Have you been seeing this? The booing. |
| 0:54.5 | The booing. The booing. |
| 0:55.7 | Yes. |
| 0:56.0 | So what is happening is that commencement speakers are coming in front of the entire class. |
| 1:03.2 | A class is about to graduate into like a terrible job market, largely in part thanks to AI or seemingly in thanks to AI. |
| 1:09.9 | And then getting up in front of them and just, like, waxing poetic about the brilliance |
| 1:17.2 | of AI, but they can't even like mention the word without getting these like overwhelming booze. |
| 1:23.2 | It's happened at least two or three times. |
| 1:25.1 | Artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution. |
| 1:34.5 | AI is rewriting production as we sit here. Deal with it. Like I said, it's a tool. |
| 1:43.3 | The question is whether you will help shape artificial intelligence. |
| 1:48.0 | We do not know. |
| 1:50.0 | And I think what is weird for me, I don't know if you were facing up against anything similar |
... |
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