Forget YouTuber voice. People are talking like ChatGPT now, research finds

A group of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin have analyzed 280,000 academic YouTube videos and reached an interesting conclusion. It turns out that the use of certain English words has increased by up to 51 percent since the launch of ChatGPT, reports The Verge. These words include meticulous, delve, realm and adept, which are words that AI models use to a greater extent than humans. “To explore whether AI has influenced human spoken communication, we transcribed and analyzed about 280,000 English-language videos of presentations, talks, and speeches from more than 20,000 YouTube channels of academic institutions,” the paper’s abstract says. “We find a significant shift in the trend of word usage specific to words distinctively associated with ChatGPT following its release. These findings provide the first empirical evidence that humans increasingly imitate LLMs in their spoken language. Our results raise societal and policy-relevant concerns about the potential of AI to unintentionally reduce linguistic diversity, or to be deliberately misused for mass manipulation. They also highlight the need for further investigation into the feedback loops between machine behavior and human culture.” According to researcher Hiromu Yakura, the people behind the clips are not aware that they have started talking like ChatGPT, so it’s a case of “virtual vocabulary being internalized into daily communication.” If you want to know more on the subject, you can download the full paper, entitled Empirical evidence of Large Language Model’s influence on human spoken communication. Further reading: 9 mundane tasks ChatGPT can handle in seconds, saving you hours

Jun 24, 2025 - 00:10

A group of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin have analyzed 280,000 academic YouTube videos and reached an interesting conclusion.

It turns out that the use of certain English words has increased by up to 51 percent since the launch of ChatGPT, reports The Verge. These words include meticulous, delve, realm and adept, which are words that AI models use to a greater extent than humans.

“To explore whether AI has influenced human spoken communication, we transcribed and analyzed about 280,000 English-language videos of presentations, talks, and speeches from more than 20,000 YouTube channels of academic institutions,” the paper’s abstract says. “We find a significant shift in the trend of word usage specific to words distinctively associated with ChatGPT following its release. These findings provide the first empirical evidence that humans increasingly imitate LLMs in their spoken language. Our results raise societal and policy-relevant concerns about the potential of AI to unintentionally reduce linguistic diversity, or to be deliberately misused for mass manipulation. They also highlight the need for further investigation into the feedback loops between machine behavior and human culture.”

According to researcher Hiromu Yakura, the people behind the clips are not aware that they have started talking like ChatGPT, so it’s a case of “virtual vocabulary being internalized into daily communication.”

If you want to know more on the subject, you can download the full paper, entitled Empirical evidence of Large Language Model’s influence on human spoken communication.

Further reading: 9 mundane tasks ChatGPT can handle in seconds, saving you hours