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Comment by empath75 | Hacker News Reader

It used to be the case that speaking in that register was a strong signal of a social pedigree and an expensive education. Now it's a signal of people being brainless and easily replaceable.

You're also seeing it in politics where politicians that don't think before they speak too much are seen as more authentic and competent than ones that hire teams of consultants to carefully massage every statement they make.

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> It used to be the case that speaking in that register was a strong signal of a social pedigree and an expensive education.

It's not the same register. There's a vast difference between the extemporaneous speech of the old school patricians and today's C-suite corp-speak.

Here's Robert F Kennedy Jr. speaking off the cuff at a public event moments after hearing that MLK had been assassinated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2kWIa8wSC0&t=238s.

That's the speaking style of social pedigree and an expensive education. You'll tend to find it contains lifts of poetry, like Kennedy's evocation of Aeschylus, and little reference to 'synergy', 'collaboration', 'efficiency', etc.

Maybe our standards are rock bottom now, but that speech did not seem to me to be "off the cuff." It seemed rehearsed, polished, edited and wordsmithed, like any other prepared speech by a politician. If he was truly winging it, then wow, what a talent!

This effect will probably be more pronounced in coming years. Being able to speak and act in ways that are obviously not AI.

The thing is that AIs are also good at mimicking informal/off-the-cuff speech, too. And people are lazy, so they'll fall back on "casual" cliches, which AIs (and consultant-driven politicians) will be just as good at mimicking. It's going to be the rare person who can stay ahead of that. It'll be an endless treadmill.

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