Humans Are Starting To Sound And Talk Like ChatGPT, Study Shows

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT, has changed how humans communicate with each other, a new study has claimed. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Germany, found that humans are starting to speak more like ChatGPT and not the other way around.

The researchers analysed over 360,000 YouTube videos and 771,000 podcast episodes from before and after ChatGPT's release to track the frequency of so-called 'GPT words'. The outcome showed that ever since ChatGPT became popular, people are using certain words much more often -- words that pop up a lot in AI-generated text.

"We detect a measurable and abrupt increase in the use of words preferentially generated by ChatGPT such as delve, comprehend, boast, swift, and meticulous, after its release," the study, published in the preprint server arXiv, highlighted.

"These findings suggest a scenario where machines, originally trained on human data and subsequently exhibiting their own cultural traits, can, in turn, measurably reshape human culture. This marks the beginning of a closed cultural feedback loop in which cultural traits circulate bidirectionally between humans and machines."

While previous studies have shown that AI models were influencing written communication for humans, it is the first time that research has shown its impact on verbal language.

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ChatGPT or any other AI model is trained on vast amounts of data using books, websites, forums, Wikipedia, and other publicly available resources. It is then fine-tuned using proprietary techniques and the reinforcement learning process. The end result is a linguistic and behavioural profile that, while rooted in human language, "exhibits systematic biases that distinguish it from organic human communication".

"The patterns that are stored in AI technology seem to be transmitting back to the human mind," study co-author Levin Brinkmann told Scientific American.

"It's natural for humans to imitate one another, but we don't imitate everyone around us equally. We're more likely to copy what someone else is doing if we perceive them as being knowledgeable or important."