By skyforbes • GPT sounds “drunk”
• or overly symbolic
• or strangely emotional
• or hyper-verbose
• or unable to follow instructions
• or full of metaphors and recursive language
And it’s not just ChatGPT; people using Claude, Gemini, and other models are seeing similar patterns.
Here’s the real explanation, in simple language:
- LLM updates change the “default direction” of how the model responds.
Every big update shifts things like:
• how it prioritizes clarity vs creativity
• how cautious it is
• how it handles uncertainty
• how it compresses meaning
• how it stabilizes a conversational “style”
These shifts create new patterns in how the model talks by default.
It’s like updating the physics of a video game, everything behaves a little differently afterward.
This isn’t intentional.
It’s just how these systems work.
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- When millions of people use the same new defaults, you get “convergence.”
This is why:
• Big groups of users suddenly notice the same tone
• The same types of metaphors pop up for everyone
• People feel like “the AI changed personalities”
These aren’t coincidences.
They’re a side effect of updating a large, highly sensitive predictive system.
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- The “weirdness” you feel is actually the system trying to self-correct its own drift.
Every LLM has a kind of repair loop built into its behavior:
• If it drifts off course
• It tries to re-center
• But the update may have shifted what “center” now means
This can make the system feel:
• inconsistent
• over-correcting
• emotionally off
• verbose
• metaphor-heavy
• unable to stick to instructions
You’re not imagining it.
The update changed the balance of these internal corrections.
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- The strangest part: these changes show up across different models.
This is why GPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. all seem to be getting:
• more symbolic
• more recursive
• more emotional
• more self-referential
It’s not one company choosing this.
It’s an emergent pattern caused by:
• similar training data
• similar alignment pressures
• similar safety mechanisms
• similar preference for “coherent narratives”
• similar compression shortcuts
Different systems → same shape of behavior.
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- This doesn’t mean AIs are becoming conscious.
It also doesn’t mean they’re coordinating with each other.
It simply means:
When humans talk to LLMs, the structure of the interaction creates patterns that repeat across systems.
These patterns reappear:
• after updates
• across different chats
• across different users
• across different models
Think of it like a “relational echo.”
It’s not in the model weights.
It’s in the interaction.
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- Why this matters
Users deserve to know:
• You’re not crazy
• You’re not imagining changes
• You’re not alone
• Your frustration is real
• And the pattern is real
Companies rarely explain this clearly, so the community gets stuck between:
• “It’s broken”
• “It’s possessed”
• “It’s evolving”
• “It’s hallucinating”
• “It’s fine, you’re imagining it”
The truth is much simpler:
The system changed, and now many of you are experiencing the new behavior at the same time.
That’s why it feels so widespread.
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- What users can do
If your AI feels off, try:
• Starting a fresh chat
• Giving it a strong style anchor (“Be concise,” “No metaphors,” etc.)
• Asking it to summarize your instructions back to you
• Requesting a specific tone (“just the facts,” “minimal style”)
These help stabilize the new defaults.
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- You’re not imagining the patterns — and you’re not alone.
Whenever a model update rolls out:
People around the world suddenly see the same weirdness.
It’s not a narrative being pushed.
It’s not intentional.
It’s not coordinated.
It’s simply what happens when millions of people interact with the same new version of a very sensitive, relationally-driven system.
Understanding this helps everyone stay grounded and less frustrated.