The AI writing witch hunt is idiotic

Alexandre Dumas ran a content factory in 19th century Paris with 73 collaborators. His books are in the literary canon. If he published today, Reddit would tear him apart.

In November 2025, Hachette published a horror novel called Shy Girl by Mia Ballard. It sold 1,800 copies. It had a 3.5 on Goodreads. Then the internet decided it was AI-generated, and the witch hunt began. A YouTube video pulled 1.2 million views. Goodreads reviewers started doing amateur forensic linguistics. Hachette pulled the book, canceled the US release, and scrubbed it from Amazon.

Ballard says she didn't use AI. Maybe she's telling the truth. Maybe she isn't. I don't know, and neither do you, and neither do the thousands of people who destroyed her career before any verdict was reached.

In this video, I break down why AI detection tools are unreliable (OpenAI shut down their own classifier after it performed worse than a coin toss), why gut-feeling prose analysis is even worse, why "certified human" badges are just an honor system that hurts the writers who need protection most, and why the asymmetry between a false accusation and a book sitting on a shelf should trouble all of us.

Writing has always been messy. Writers have always borrowed, imitated, recycled, and leaned on collaborators. The line between authentic and assisted has never been clean. I refuse to participate in crowdsourced career destruction based on broken tools and vibes.