Dartmouth provost's articles flagged as mostly AI-written by detector
A provost who wrote against AI cheating had his 2026 works test at a median 96% AI-written, reviving the detector-reliability debate.
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An investigation by The Dartmouth found that nine works published in 2026 by Provost Santiago Schnell returned a median 96% "AI-written" score from the Pangram 4.0 detector, and his own September 18 email statement tested as 100% AI-written.
The contrast is clean: five of his works from before 2022 all came back 100% human-written. In August, a Semafor investigation had already flagged his Washington Post column — an essay arguing against AI cheating — as 100% AI-written.
Schnell disputes the characterization, saying AI detectors are biased against nonnative English speakers and that he uses AI only for refinement. Pangram self-reports a 0.01% false positive rate, backed by a University of Chicago audit and an NBER working paper, but a detector's verdict is still not proof of authorship.