HumanPrint: How to Use AI Without Losing Yourself
Aug 13, 2026 · 18 min · 10 segments
**What this episode is about** Spotting AI writing has become an internet sport. Someone sees an em dash or a tidy structure and starts a forensic investigation from the comments section, and now the…
Christine WhitmarshHostSo in the last episode, we talked about freedom of creative process, knowing how you write, understanding where tools that you choose to use fit inside that process, deciding what belongs to you, and refusing to explain or defend those decisions simply because a platform like Substack or LinkedIn or some stranger on those platforms demands an account of how you used tools in your writing process.
What happens when the platform doesn't stop at questioning your process, but hands other people the tools to investigate it, essentially to investigate you? Substack now allows readers to scan eligible posts, as I mentioned in the last episode, notes, comments, replies through an AI detech- detection system called Pangram.
Let me say that phrase again, "Seems like." It's just so scientifically authoritative, right? LinkedIn is not asking whether the post contains false information, copied material, harassment, spam, or some other identifiable, provable problem.
It's asking users to make a process accusation based on how the writing seems to them.
And once we start doing that, the writing itself stops being the primary object of evaluation.
Was the idea useful? Was the information accurate? Did the writer support their argument? Did the story have a point? Was the post worth the time it took to read? Those are questions readers can answer because the work is right there in front of them.
But whether a writer used AI, how they used it, where their original thinking entered the process, what they changed, what they rejected, and whether the tools supported or replaced their judgment are questions a reader generally cannot answer from the finished paragraph.
That doesn't stop people from trying, of course, given the nature of social media.
Have you noticed? Someone sees an em dash, a clean, well-organized structure, a word they dislike or associate with AI, even though the words all came from writers in the first place, or a sentence that sounds too polished, and suddenly they're reenacting the finale scene from "A Few Good Men" in the comments section.
You may be able to identify language that resembles common, unedited AI output.
I've spent years studying writing voices and working with generative AI, and there are patterns I recognize immediately.
But recognizing a pattern is different from knowing the process that produced a particular piece of writing.
So in the last episode, we talked about freedom of creative process, knowing how you write, understanding where tools that you choose to use fit inside that process, deciding what belongs to you, and refusing to explain or defend those decisions simply because a platform like Substack or LinkedIn or some stranger on those platforms demands an account of how you used tools in your writing process.
What happens when the platform doesn't stop at questioning your process, but hands other people the tools to investigate it, essentially to investigate you? Substack now allows readers to scan eligible posts, as I mentioned in the last episode, notes, comments, replies through an AI detech- detection system called Pangram.
Let me say that phrase again, "Seems like." It's just so scientifically authoritative, right? LinkedIn is not asking whether the post contains false information, copied material, harassment, spam, or some other identifiable, provable problem.
It's asking users to make a process accusation based on how the writing seems to them.
And once we start doing that, the writing itself stops being the primary object of evaluation.
Was the idea useful? Was the information accurate? Did the writer support their argument? Did the story have a point? Was the post worth the time it took to read? Those are questions readers can answer because the work is right there in front of them.
But whether a writer used AI, how they used it, where their original thinking entered the process, what they changed, what they rejected, and whether the tools supported or replaced their judgment are questions a reader generally cannot answer from the finished paragraph.
That doesn't stop people from trying, of course, given the nature of social media.
Have you noticed? Someone sees an em dash, a clean, well-organized structure, a word they dislike or associate with AI, even though the words all came from writers in the first place, or a sentence that sounds too polished, and suddenly they're reenacting the finale scene from "A Few Good Men" in the comments section.
You may be able to identify language that resembles common, unedited AI output.
I've spent years studying writing voices and working with generative AI, and there are patterns I recognize immediately.
But recognizing a pattern is different from knowing the process that produced a particular piece of writing.
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