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"
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Replying to @DKThomp
Of course, the tricolon (list of three) has been regarded as an important rhetorical device since antiquity.

Aug 3, 2026 · 3:10 PM UTC

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Replying to @ismurray @DKThomp
It’s sad to see it flagged as AI because some of us have been using them for ages
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Replying to @ismurray @DKThomp
and yet the gap between human writers and AI in its prevalence is statistically significant
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Replying to @ismurray @DKThomp
Good call there - the tricolon has a big impact on the reader and also showcases depth of items in a category or description.
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Replying to @ismurray @DKThomp
Generations of Latin students have known about that, unless they somehow managed to avoid Cicero: "O di inmortales! ubinam gentium sumus? in qua urbe vivimus? quam rem publicam habemus?"
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Replying to @ismurray @DKThomp
That’s why there is so much of it in the corpus
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