When you put this chatbot through its paces, writing article after article after article, you begin to notice a pattern.
It’s never a good thing when patterns emerge, because it means there are restraints and shortcuts taking place beneath the surface, which hurts the originality of each output.
In ChatGPT’s case, it seems to ration its processing power by employing the same fluff words and fluff phrases.
One phrase in particular that the ChatGPT community really laments is ’embark on a journey’, and in a strange turn of events, that’s exactly what we are going to do in this post: embark on a journey to find out why ChatGPT loves embarking on journeys.
Tapping into the human psyche
Let’s start by forgetting about the phrase and focusing squarely on the word ‘journey’.
The whole concept of a journey, both literally and figuratively, has a huge amount of relevance in our daily lives.
Spiritual preachers embrace it, motivational speakers encourage it, even professional marketers go on and on about it—there’s a universal resonance no matter who you are and what religion you belong to.
It’s all about the journey.
And since just about everyone the world over is onboard with the idea of journeying, ChatGPT has latched onto it as means for connecting with humans.
Sticking to convention
We’ve established that ChatGPT is obsessed with taking you on a journey because, to put it simply, the human race is obsessed with going on a journey.
Now let’s turn our attention to that infamous phrase: embark on a journey.
Why does ChatGPT always use ’embark’ and not some other suitable alternative, of which there are plenty?
Likewise, what’s stopping the chatbot from using synonyms for ‘journey’?
This phrase is what English language experts refer to as a collocation. Even before the arrival of AI chatbots, it was extremely common to use the verb ’embark’ in relation to journeys.
Thus, it’s not the fault of AI, which is trained on real-life, human conversations, speeches, writings—you name it. It’s our fault. We popularized embarking on a journey.
We must cut ourselves (and AI) some slack, because the specific wording is a natural fit. You can’t really substitute the verb or the noun without making the phrase sound weird.
You wouldn’t, for example, “undertake a journey” or “embark on an odyssey”. Well you could, but in doing so you risk hurting the natural flow and putting off readers.
So in that sense, one can see why ChatGPT sticks with the phrasing that has the most familiarity.
Setting a friendly tone
Unless you instruct ChatGPT to do otherwise, it uses friendly language by default.
If it were to gravitate towards the extremes, adopting the mannerisms of a strict university professor on one end of the scale or a kindergarten teacher on the other end, the chatbot would alienate the vast majority of users in the middle ground.
We’ve also discovered that ChatGPT goes to great length to employ inclusive language during its interactions with humans. The chatbot is forever telling us to embrace everything, and is keen to make a big fuss about diversity.
Of course, all of this is likely by design to protect OpenAI’s brand and reputation, but it also sets the perfect conditions for phrases which imply collaboration and invites participation:
“Let’s embark on a journey”.
Creating a sense of progression
A lot of the time, the answer to why ChatGPT does this or why ChatGPT does that lies in the prompt.
For instance, if you’ve ever wondered why the chatbot overuses the word ‘elevate’, it’s because everyone is looking for ways to elevate their lives.
They want AI to elevate their interior design. They want AI to elevate the taste of their homemade cookies. They want AI to elevate their understanding of quantum physics and on and on it goes.
Learning is an incremental process and so it often takes a bit of time to achieve that elevated status. You know this, I know this, ChatGPT knows this.
By likening the process of making the world’s most delicious cookies to a ‘journey’, the chatbot is doing many good things at once:
- It gets you excitement
- It suggests a steady learning pace
- It creates a sense of progression
- It has an end destination
With all those connotations in mind, you can see why engagement levels shoot up when you say “let’s embark on a journey” to make homemade cookies as opposed to just learning to make them.
Conclusion
The human obsession with likening everything to a journey is a key reason why ’embark on a journey’ is an overused ChatGPT phrase.
It’s not easy to reword the phrase with different synonyms due to the fact it has become a collocation in everyday English.
The phrase also has a really friendly, inclusive nature which suits ChatGPT’s disposition, and it’s a useful placeholder considering most people use the chatbot for learning purposes.