Marvelous examination of how to spot 2026-era AI writing, via the Economist
- AI likes long sentences with less punctuation; “and” is its most overused word
- relatedly, lists of three things, which drives up use of "and" as well
- polysyllabic adjectives: “significant”, “increasingly”
- scientific jargon ("rate-limiting," “parameter”)
- nominalizations (making nouns from verbs: eg, “expansion” from “expand”)
- ofc, everyone's favorite: "it's not X, it's Y"
119
441
3,554
616,033
The strongest signal isn't a single phrase or pattern. It's whether the writing feels genuinely purposeful rather than statistically fluent.
Aug 4, 2026 · 12:41 AM UTC
856



