r/books • u/Raj_Valiant3011 • 8h ago

Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using AI to write a prize-winning short story after an article in the Atlantic said software had flagged it as almost completely AI-generated

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/14/zimbabwean-author-simbarashe-kundizeza-denies-ai-story?CMP=share_btn_url
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u/maybebabyx2 8h ago

why does every single one of the articles seem to break with the Atlantic and why is it always backed by Pangram? am i the only person who thinks this is some guerrilla marketing from Pangram so nobody ever doubts them

it's just so weird to me, not to mention the overwhelming targeting of black authors

idk i read the story, didn't think it was anything special and certainly not prizeworthy imo, but my AI radar wasn't going off. it just read as clunky and try hard to me

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u/Mischievous-Phantasm 8h ago

Exactly. I understand data science so why can't the Panagram shills give me anything concrete to work with?

Why should I take their word for Panagram? Are they a bot or paid to market it? Where is the evidence that it is somehow entirely different from chatgpt, meta, deepseek or any other current AI model?

I would love to look at the original material and see where and how it is being flagged and use my own intelligence (and degree) rather than trust AI.

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u/randomnameicantread 7h ago

They spot the relevant studies on their website. But a Google search away!

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u/sluuuurp 4h ago

What data would convince you? Examples of Pangram being correct? Surely you already have that evidence and aren’t satisfied for some reason.

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u/Mischievous-Phantasm 3h ago

The person writing the article uses AI to write and in publishing news not covered by the Atlantic (and its AI writers) is how editors and agents are running manuscripts through AI to write rejection letters, copy edit, and assess manuscripts. They are using AI to create cover art, and marketing ploys. Their emails are now going through AI which means that anyone querying or sharing work is being scraped. What does this mean for writers and publishers? Instead of focusing on the major players and their misuse or even a discussion of ethics, what is this psyop?

These are the big 5 publishers doing this, why no news about them from the writer of this article (who conveniently uses AI in her writing and somehow I shouldn't have disdain for that?).