







How have recommendation algorithms affected language? Linguist Adam Aleksic — aka the Etymology Nerd — says most “Gen-Z slang” is either appropriated from Black people or incels. This week, we trace how -maxxing went from the eugenicist looksmaxxing subculture to trending TikToks to the Pentagon tweeting about “lethality maxxing.” And we ask what’s actually at stake when we use words without knowing where they come from.
The Thoughts The Civilized Keep
The hype around a new AI language generator reveals the sterility of mainstream thinking on AI today — and indeed on how we think about thinking itself.

Covert Racism in AI: How Language Models Are Reinforcing Outdated Stereotypes | Stanford HAI
Despite advancements in AI, new research reveals that large language models continue to perpetuate harmful racial biases, particularly against speakers of African American English.

AI slop
AI slop is digital content made with generative artificial intelligence that is perceived as lacking in effort, quality, or meaning, and produced in high volume as clickbait to gain advantage in the attention economy, or earn money. It is a form of synthetic media usually linked to the monetization in the creator economy of social media and online advertising. Coined in the 2020s, the term has a pejorative connotation similar to spam. "Slop" was selected as the 2025 Word of the Year by both Merriam-Webster and the American Dialect Society.

Model Misalignment and Language Change: Traces of AI-Associated Language in Unscripted Spoken English
In recent years, written language, particularly in science and education, has undergone remarkable shifts in word usage. These changes are widely attributed to the growing influence of Large Language Models (LLMs), which frequently rely on a distinct lexical style. Divergences between model output and target audience norms can be viewed as a form of misalignment. While these shifts are often linked to using Artificial Intelligence (AI) directly as a tool to generate text, it remains unclear whether the changes reflect broader changes in the human language system itself. To explore this question, we constructed a dataset of 22.1 million words from unscripted spoken language drawn from conversational science and technology podcasts. We analyzed lexical trends before and after ChatGPT's release in 2022, focusing on commonly LLM-associated words. Our results show a moderate yet significant increase in the usage of these words post-2022, suggesting a convergence between human word choices and LLM-associated patterns. In contrast, baseline synonym words exhibit no significant directional shift. Given the short time frame and the number of words affected, this may indicate the onset of a remarkable shift in language use. Whether this represents natural language change or a novel shift driven by AI exposure remains an open question. Similarly, although the shifts may stem from broader adoption patterns, it may also be that upstream training misalignments ultimately contribute to changes in human language use. These findings parallel ethical concerns that misaligned models may shape social and moral beliefs.

Model Misalignment and Language Change: Traces of AI-Associated Language in Unscripted Spoken English
In recent years, written language, particularly in science and education, has undergone remarkable shifts in word usage. These changes are widely attributed to the growing influence of Large Language Models (LLMs), which frequently rely on a distinct lexical style. Divergences between model output and target audience norms can be viewed as a form of misalignment. While these shifts are often linked to using Artificial Intelligence (AI) directly as a tool to generate text, it remains unclear whether the changes reflect broader changes in the human language system itself. To explore this question, we constructed a dataset of 22.1 million words from unscripted spoken language drawn from conversational science and technology podcasts. We analyzed lexical trends before and after ChatGPT's release in 2022, focusing on commonly LLM-associated words. Our results show a moderate yet significant increase in the usage of these words post-2022, suggesting a convergence between human word choices and LLM-associated patterns. In contrast, baseline synonym words exhibit no significant directional shift. Given the short time frame and the number of words affected, this may indicate the onset of a remarkable shift in language use. Whether this represents natural language change or a novel shift driven by AI exposure remains an open question. Similarly, although the shifts may stem from broader adoption patterns, it may also be that upstream training misalignments ultimately contribute to changes in human language use. These findings parallel ethical concerns that misaligned models may shape social and moral beliefs.

Why Does ChatGPT "Delve" So Much? Exploring the Sources of Lexical Overrepresentation in Large Language Models
Scientific English is currently undergoing rapid change, with words like "delve," "intricate," and "underscore" appearing far more frequently than just a few years ago. It is widely assumed that scientists' use of large language models (LLMs) is responsible for such trends. We develop a formal, transferable method to characterize these linguistic changes. Application of our method yields 21 focal words whose increased occurrence in scientific abstracts is likely the result of LLM usage. We then pose "the puzzle of lexical overrepresentation": WHY are such words overused by LLMs? We fail to find evidence that lexical overrepresentation is caused by model architecture, algorithm choices, or training data. To assess whether reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) contributes to the overuse of focal words, we undertake comparative model testing and conduct an exploratory online study. While the model testing is consistent with RLHF playing a role, our experimental results suggest that participants may be reacting differently to "delve" than to other focal words. With LLMs quickly becoming a driver of global language change, investigating these potential sources of lexical overrepresentation is important. We note that while insights into the workings of LLMs are within reach, a lack of transparency surrounding model development remains an obstacle to such research.

Why Does ChatGPT "Delve" So Much? Exploring the Sources of Lexical Overrepresentation in Large Language Models
Scientific English is currently undergoing rapid change, with words like "delve," "intricate," and "underscore" appearing far more frequently than just a few years ago. It is widely assumed that scientists' use of large language models (LLMs) is responsible for such trends. We develop a formal, transferable method to characterize these linguistic changes. Application of our method yields 21 focal words whose increased occurrence in scientific abstracts is likely the result of LLM usage. We then pose "the puzzle of lexical overrepresentation": WHY are such words overused by LLMs? We fail to find evidence that lexical overrepresentation is caused by model architecture, algorithm choices, or training data. To assess whether reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) contributes to the overuse of focal words, we undertake comparative model testing and conduct an exploratory online study. While the model testing is consistent with RLHF playing a role, our experimental results suggest that participants may be reacting differently to "delve" than to other focal words. With LLMs quickly becoming a driver of global language change, investigating these potential sources of lexical overrepresentation is important. We note that while insights into the workings of LLMs are within reach, a lack of transparency surrounding model development remains an obstacle to such research.

LLMDeathCount.com
Large Language Models like ChatGPT have led people to their deaths, often by suicide. This site serves to remember those who have been affected, to call out the dangers of AI that claims to be intelligent, and the corporations that are responsible.
The more young people use AI, the more they hate it
Caught between fears of job loss and social stigma, Gen Z’s opinions of AI are hitting new lows.

Unpacking the Racism of Digital Blackface in the Information Age
On-screen and now IRL: FSU researchers find evidence of ChatGPT buzzwords turning up in everyday speech
Within five days of ChatGPT’s release in 2022, the artificial intelligence chatbot gained more than a million users. Today, more than half of all adults

Musk’s AI Grok bot rants about ‘white genocide’ in South Africa in unrelated chats
X chatbot tells users it was ‘instructed by my creators’ to accept ‘white genocide as real and racially motivated’

Do You Speak ChatGPTese? Beyond Writing, AI Is Also Flattening The Way We Talk
A study of hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos and podcasts reveals that AI isn’t just changing how we write, it’s subtly altering our spoken language too, raising new concerns about cultural homogenization and who controls the words we use. A study of hundreds of thousands of lectures and podcasts reveals that AI isn’t just changing how we write, it’s subtly altering our spoken language too, raising new concerns about cultural homogenization and who controls the words we use.

The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models rep…
The new era of tech seems to be built on superstitious behaviour

1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.
The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science
arxiv.org