A look at various quirks in AI-generated prose, mainly influenced by “overfitting” in AI models, as humans increasingly mimic AI language in writing and speech
Plus: otherworlds, cozy lit and VHS rentals Max Read / Read Max : Will A.I. writing ever be good? Alberto Romero / The Algorithmic Bridge : The Death of the English Language X: Joe McKendrick / @joemckendrick : Every AI-written sentence “sings, yes, but honestly? It sings a little flat. It doesn't open up the tapestry of human experience — it reads like it was written by a shut-in with Wi-Fi and a thesaurus. Not sensory, not real, just ... there.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Matthew Kassel / @matthewkassel : “I think at some point in those first five days, everyone independently noticed that the really funny part about getting A.I. to answer various wacky prompts was the wacky prompts themselves — that is, the human element” https://www.nytimes.com/... Willy / @willystaley : In this week's Magazine: Sam Kriss on the unfortunate quirks of AI's prose style. https://www.nytimes.com/... Nate Silver / @natesilver538 : This is good — even if it slanders the em-dash. AI's tendency to statistically smooth out the rough edges produces extremely mid prose. https://www.nytimes.com/... @esotericcd : I am the king of em-dashes, and have been employing them since I was still literally writing out my school assignments in longhand. (We did this in high school! Couldn't really cheat!) I resent that they have now become an “AI signature.” Matthew Zeitlin / @mattzeitlin : after chatgpt was released, british MPs started using phrases in their parliamentary speeches that american congressmen use in their floor speechs [image] John Merrick / @johnpmerrick : Brilliant essay by Sam Kriss on what is so strange about AI generated text. Also manages to distill my greatest fear about AI: that i too will end up writing, unconsciously, like an AI chatbot https://www.nytimes.com/... [image] Bluesky: Paul Waldman / @paulwaldman : Read this NYT piece by Sam Kriss about AI's distinctive writing style - especially “It's not X - it's Y” - and then look at this horror of an AI-generated article, which uses all the tropes he identifies, over and over again. — www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/m... [embedded post] Asher Elbein / @asherelbein : This is a very good and interesting rhetorical analysis of AI's very particular and strange quirks Nick Sousanis / @nsousanis : “A lot of A.I.'s choices make sense when you understand that it's constantly tickling the Simpsons.” — Smart and horrifying look at Ai writing and its ubiquity... www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/m... Cynthia Brumfield / @metacurity.com : “But the simplest theory of why A.I.s are so fixated on the em dash is that they use it because humans do. This particular punctuation mark has a significant writerly fan base, and a lot of them are now penning furious defenses of their favorite horizontal line.” — www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/m... Arin Arcady / @rnrkd : This has a number of interesting insights. One is something that Gary Shteyngart commented on when I went to see him the other week: that A.I. is almost wholly incapable of writing comedy. It can be inadvertently funny with bizarre responses, but that's not comedy. — www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/m... Elias Isquith / @eliasisquith.blog : i try not to be a doomer but reading this put me in a real “hannah arendt decides to write a book about how latent totalitarianism is the only thing that matters” mood Forums: r/Longreads : Why Does A.I. Write Like ... That? (Gift Article) r/artificial : Why Does A.I. Write Like ... That?