ChatGPT Imbotster Syndrome is gumming up how we write professionally (www.businessinsider.com)

A growing social phenomenon — dubbed "imbotster syndrome" — is making professionals anxious that their perfectly polished prose will be mistaken for AI. The article opens with a LinkedIn DM author, Olwyn Patterson, whose blunt, efficient outreach was labeled "AI-driven," sparking debate about what "writing like a human" even means. With platforms like ChatGPT and Claude reportedly saturating long-form LinkedIn posts, users have become informal AI-detectives, flagging stylistic markers (em-dashes, three-part lists, neat rhetorical flips) as "AI tells." Ghostwriters and communicators now deliberately alter cadence, strip rhetorical flourishes, or even introduce typos to signal authenticity, while others quietly integrate LLMs into drafting and then heavily humanize outputs. This shift matters for AI/ML and communication alike: it shows how rapidly large language models have internalized professional rhetoric and how unreliable surface-level detection is becoming. Experts warn detection tech lags model sophistication, creating a social—not just technical—problem where trust, not clarity, drives writing choices. For practitioners, the implications are twofold: NLP researchers face a moving target as models learn to mimic human idiosyncrasies, and communicators must renegotiate stylistic norms and authenticity signals in an ecosystem where any text may be judged in the shadow of AI.