Once you start noticing the phrase 'it's not X, it's Y' as you scroll online, you can't fail to register it. I've become so hypervigilant that it has seeped into my subconscious thoughts. This rhetorical device, a hallmark of ChatGPT, is everywhere—from Facebook posts to Peloton classes and even TV shows.
It's not just a harmless stylistic quirk; it's a telltale sign of AI-generated content. Whenever I see or hear someone telling me that something isn't something because it's actually something else, I automatically tense up, assuming I'm dealing with a datacentre rather than a human. This may not always be the case, but it's a sign of the times that we can't just relax and assume the things we see and hear were made by people.
Other linguistic gimmicks from ChatGPT include vague, soft intensifiers like 'quietly powerful' or 'deeply transformative', and an overuse of em-dashes. But nothing haunts me quite as much as 'it's not X, it's Y'. I've become so hypervigilant that I now waste energy trying not to write any variation of it, for fear of being mistaken for a bot.
AI evolves quickly, and this quirk will likely be replaced by a new, no less sinister stylistic tic. But for now, it's a constant reminder of the blurring line between human and machine-generated content.
