Comment by Eisenstein

This is actually a good thing. Hear me out...

Before LLMs, people had to write these things, and some of them didn't want to. They half-assed it and didn't mean what they wrote, but it was homework and they did it. Reading the letters, it would be tough to separate the sincere from the genuine, because it was done in everyone's typical style.

Now, you see the hallmarks of LLM text construction -- the effusive yet somehow stilted formality with an uncanny valley friendly tone that makes one feel at the same time like they are being sold something and that they are being used as a emotional dumping ground for an person with no self-esteem who needs constant validation.

When you see this, you will know who cares about the process and who does not. You can use that information however you like, but despairing for humanity is probably a bit overblown, IMO.