During an interview, Spero’s responses appeared inconsistent, pausing frequently as he multitasked. When questioned about Pangram’s hiring practices, he noted that employees are driven by a commitment to the company’s mission, illustrated by his brief interruption to reheat his meal. “The average person is at Pangram because they care about the mission,” he explained, highlighting the team’s dedication to their goals.
To identify AI-generated content, Pangram employs “synthetic mirroring,” a technique where human writing is compared against AI-generated matches to teach their model how AI produces text. Additionally, the company uses “hard negative mining” to correct false positives by analyzing and augmenting training data with corrected examples. Spero emphasized that Pangram’s datasets are properly licensed, a distinction that sets it apart from many AI firms. He acknowledged challenges in the industry, particularly with creative professionals who have lost trust in AI-developed tools, underscoring creative writing as a primary focus in their training data.
Pangram gained prominence through its analysis of the controversial Shy Girl story, where it flagged the manuscript as potentially AI-generated. While Spero initially downplayed Pangram’s role, further investigation revealed internal discussions that led to media coverage in The New York Times. However, critics, including The Drey Dossier, highlighted that Spero obtained the manuscript from a pirated source, raising concerns about the legitimacy of Pangram’s findings. Spero admitted to using the pirated document without thorough verification, stating, “Yeah. And, like, yeah … it is what it is.”
Pangram’s scrutiny of literary awards has sparked debate, with claims of AI involvement in past winners. However, Spero minimized the impact on book deals, asserting that Pangram scores rarely serve as definitive factors. “It’s a small part of the bigger picture,” he stated, emphasizing that decisions involve multiple considerations beyond detection scores.
Regarding Substack integration, Spero advocated for transparency, asserting that creative work should stand on its own merit. He argued that dependency on AI-generated deception ultimately faces limitations. His remarks, drawn from a prior public statement, underscore the need for ethical disclosure practices in content creation.
