A linguistic anthropologist explains how humans are like ChatGPT—both recycle language

ChatGPT is a hot topic at my university, where faculty members are deeply concerned about academic integrity, while administrators urge us to "embrace the benefits" of this "new frontier." It's a classic example of what my colleague Punya Mishra calls the "doom-hype cycle" around new technologies. Likewise, media coverage of human-AI interaction—whether paranoid or starry-eyed—tends to emphasize its newness.