Friday September 8, 2023; 12:31 PM EDT
- ChatGPT does have a prose style when it is given a non-technical task like describing the nature of blueberry muffins. The style currently relies on a lot of generalities and more abstract terms of praise, and a smaller number of concrete physical descriptions. There is a gush of enthusiasm in the tone, often rendered with stock phrases already known to readers rather than through fresh observations. The reader is seemingly expected to instantly agree with the familiar description rather than be persuaded by it. The style does not primarily develop a line of thought, but instead it offers lists: implicitly, it's "here's one thing . . . and another thing . . ." which is a loose kind of writing and thinking. By generating its lists from things readers probably already fully know, it never provokes disagreement over content, I imagine. It plays it safe that way, as Brad Pettit pointed out, which makes it a cousin to the writing found in familiar kinds of greeting cards. I assume that the technical work done by the software is another matter.#