AI Imitation Pushes Humans Into a New Uncanny Valley, 360,000-Video Study Suggests
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Aug 20
AI Imitation Pushes Humans Into a New Uncanny Valley, 360,000-Video Study Suggests
2 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 20
Summary
A new form of the uncanny valley is spreading from faces to minds, as people increasingly sound, write and behave like AI rather than merely reacting uneasily to humanlike machines.
A 2025 Max Planck Institute study of 360,000 YouTube videos and 772,000 podcasts found speakers used ChatGPT-favored words such as “delve,” “boast” and “meticulous” more often after its release.
The essay argues this shift is driven by a technological inferiority complex: as AI appears tireless, polished and always available, people come to see their own flawed minds as defective and imitate the machine.
That dynamic mirrors a broader boom in cosmetic procedures, where humans also reshape bodies toward standardized, optimized looks—suggesting self-alienation now affects both appearance and thought.
Four years after ChatGPT’s public launch, the result is a hybrid gray zone in which readers and listeners increasingly doubt whether a song, message or polished prose is fully human.