Can one AI tell if another has written a novel? The Pangram debate, explained

The controversy over David Silva Rojas's novel, 'Where the Water Works,' centers on claims that 99% of it is AI-generated, as detected by Pangram. This has sparked debates about AI detection reliability in literature. Pangram, founded by Stanford graduates, aims to distinguish human writing from AI-generated text. It has shown a low false-positive rate, rarely misclassifying human texts as AI-generated. However, it is not infallible and can sometimes misidentify AI-generated content as human. The novel's unique style, characterized by short sentences, raised questions about detection accuracy, but tests indicated that style did not confuse the detector. The emergence of AI in literature has prompted discussions about the implications for authors and the publishing industry.