At the rate we’re going, we’re going to start running out of words we can use when we write that won’t immediately make people think AI wrote the story. 

The latest ones? “Load-bearing” and “gold light”. The latter I understand; gold light, and feelings of gold, can be a good way to indicate good feelings and happiness. But “load-bearing”? Why did AI decide that was going to be something it used in pretty much every piece of fiction it writes? 

As far as the internet can tell, it comes down to four things:

1. The model is trained on documents that constantly use the phrase “load-bearing” in its correct form. 

2. The model is trying to write the most compressed/concise description possible, and “load-bearing” can certainly be load-bearing when it comes to conveying emotions. 

3. The model is reinforced positively when it uses intellectual language, and “load-bearing” is often used in intellectual texts. 

4. The model is suffering from semantic creep — it uses “load-bearing” once, and if you don’t catch it early and change it, it’ll think it should keep using the phrase. 

I rarely use the phrase “load-bearing” in my writing, but now it’s just another thing I have to add to the no-no list. Sigh.