AI Authorship Does Not Invalidate an Article’s Argument, Bert Hubert Says

Summary

Bert Hubert responds to people dismissing otherwise readable opinion pieces after Pangram labels them as partly authored by AI. He says readers are free to avoid engaging with AI-assisted writing, just as he has chosen not to engage with some AI-generated code contributions. However, he argues that suspected AI authorship cannot by itself show that an article’s premise is false or its reasoning unsound. He also notes that Pangram’s assessment may be wrong, so treating a detector result as a decisive “gotcha” adds another source of uncertainty. In his view, criticism should address the content and evidence of the piece, while ethical objections to using AI can be stated separately. Although he is strongly opposed to the broader consequences of generative AI, he recommends doing one’s own writing when possible because writing is also a way of thinking.