{"id":401422,"date":"2026-04-16T10:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T10:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/401422\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T10:34:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T10:34:21","slug":"chatgpts-latest-stylistic-quirk-is-sinister-infuriating-and-absolutely-everywhere-stuart-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/401422\/","title":{"rendered":"ChatGPT\u2019s latest stylistic quirk is sinister, infuriating \u2013 and absolutely everywhere | Stuart Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve never seen Jim Carrey\u2019s 2007 psychological thriller The Number 23<\/a>, then congratulations. It is a film about a man who sees the number 23 so many times that he ends up going bonkers. I used to think this film was stupid. However, now I appear to be living it.<\/p>\n

My own personal number 23 is a rhetorical device: \u201cIt\u2019s not X, it\u2019s Y.\u201d Everywhere I look, there it is. Whenever I hate myself enough to scroll through Facebook\u2019s wilderness of algorithmically suggested posts, I find myself being smacked in the face with sentences such as: \u201cSelf-improvement isn\u2019t a trend, it\u2019s a lifestyle shift,\u201d and \u201cThe small wins aren\u2019t just moments, they\u2019re the majority of your life.\u201d Once you notice it, it becomes impossible to ignore. This weekend during a Peloton class (I know, shut up), I heard an instructor bark a variation of \u201cthis isn\u2019t X, it\u2019s Y\u201d. Yesterday, a character did the same during a TV show I was reviewing, and I dropped a star from its score in retaliation.<\/p>\n

You know where this is coming from, don\u2019t you? \u201cIt\u2019s not X, it\u2019s Y\u201d is an AI mainstay. It\u2019s one of ChatGPT\u2019s most insidious tells. No matter how innocuous a prompt you enter, AI will always find a way to sneak it into its response. Ask it if you should put more ham in your pasta, and it will tell you: \u201cHam doesn\u2019t just taste good \u2013 it makes everything else taste better.\u201d Ask it if you should chase a bee around your garden and it will say: \u201cBees aren\u2019t stupid \u2013 they\u2019re hyper-specialised\u201d.<\/p>\n

double quotation markIf you ever see anything described as \u2018quietly powerful\u2019, that should set your spidey-senses tingling<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not X, it\u2019s Y\u201d has become such a shorthand for lazy AI slop that, as soon as I see or hear someone telling me that something isn\u2019t something because it\u2019s actually something else, I automatically tense up on the assumption that I\u2019m not dealing with a human, I\u2019m dealing with a datacentre. That might not necessarily be the case \u2013 there is a possibility every example is completely organic \u2013 but it\u2019s a sign of the times that we can\u2019t just relax and assume the things we see and hear were made by people.<\/p>\n

Although \u201cit\u2019s not X, it\u2019s Y\u201d predates ChatGPT, I cannot hear it without assuming that AI made it. A few weeks ago, I was rewatching the Mad Men episode where Don Draper pitches a watch. \u201cIt\u2019s not a timepiece,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a conversation piece.\u201d A decade ago, I was amazed by Draper\u2019s elegant turn of phrase. But now I can\u2019t see it without thinking that a chatbot vomited it out between daytime scotches.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of other linguistic gimmicks that appear to come direct from ChatGPT. Vague, soft intensifiers are one: if you ever see anything described as \u201cquietly powerful\u201d or \u201cdeeply transformative\u201d, then that should set your spidey-senses tingling. ChatGPT is also known for being a bit too liberal with em-dashes. So am I, but the robots can rip them from my cold dead hands. Nevertheless, nothing haunts me quite as much as \u201cit\u2019s not X, it\u2019s Y\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is my life now. I\u2019ve become so hypervigilant to the construction that it has seeped into my subconscious thoughts. This isn\u2019t a cup of tea, I say out loud to myself, it\u2019s a precious respite. That isn\u2019t a window, it\u2019s a portal to a new way of thinking. This isn\u2019t food poisoning, it\u2019s a quietly powerful reminder not to eat raw chicken off the kitchen floor.<\/p>\n

So now, whenever I sit down at my desk, I waste all my energy trying not to write any variation of \u201cit\u2019s not X, it\u2019s Y\u201d, because I don\u2019t want you to think I use AI. It\u2019s much harder than it looks. I literally used it four paragraphs ago, with the datacentre thing. It has made me even more determined to prove that I\u2019m a human. What do I need to do? Come to your house and free-associate a column at you? Send out vials of my saliva? I\u2019ll do whatever it takes.<\/p>\n

Hopefully this won\u2019t be for ever. AI evolves so quickly that \u201cit\u2019s not X, it\u2019s Y\u201d will soon become a thing of the past. It will probably be replaced by a new stylistic quirk, no less sinister but harder to detect. And if that doesn\u2019t happen, you have my full permission to lock me away for my own safety. \u201cThis isn\u2019t incarceration,\u201d you can tell me as you slam the door. \u201cIt\u2019s a quiet reset.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve never seen Jim Carrey\u2019s 2007 psychological thriller The Number 23, then congratulations. It is a film…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-401422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}