ChatGpt is changing the way people talk

Eighteen months after ChatGpt launched, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development conducted an analysis of nearly 280,000 videos posted on academic YouTube channels, finding that the use of the chatbot is changing the way people talk. Terms like “meticulous,” “deepen,” “kingdom,” and “expert” have seen increases in speech of up to 51% compared to the previous three years. According to the analysis, this is no coincidence. These terms are among the most used by ChatGpt, as reported in an earlier study from Stanford University.

"We internalize this virtual vocabulary in everyday communication," explained Hiromu Yakura, lead author of the Max Planck study and a researcher at the institute. "Our results show that the widespread use of AIs like ChatGpt is influencing human language models, and that humans are increasingly adopting the language favored by these models. If research is primarily focused on aligning machines with human behavior, it seems that the opposite may also be true."

One word in particular struck the researchers as a kind of linguistic watermark. “Delve” has become a much more present reference than before, almost a distinctive element of a conversation “that may underscore the invisible presence of ChatGpt,” says Yakura colleague Levin Brinkmann, who collaborated on the report.

The study comes just days after an experiment by the MIT Media Lab found that over-reliance on chatbots to compose academic texts has an adverse cognitive effect, reducing brain activity and limiting learning capacity.