Why does AI love writing about lighthouse keepers?
A recent study from Cornell University reveals that leading language models frequently generate stories featuring a limited set of characters and themes, particularly lighthouse keepers and fishermen. The research analyzed 20,000 stories and found that 88% included at least one of 11 specific tokens related to location, name, or profession. This pattern was confirmed through independent testing of various language models, which consistently produced similar narrative elements.
- ▪The study found that 88% of stories generated by language models featured at least one of 11 specific tokens.
- ▪The most common tokens included names like Elias and Mara, and professions such as keeper and fisherman.
- ▪Independent testing of models like ChatGPT and Claude Haiku confirmed the study's findings.
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Anderson's Angle Why Does AI Love Writing About Lighthouse Keepers? Published May 27, 2026 By Martin Anderson Asked to ‘write a story’, ChatGPT and other leading language models appear to be avoiding copyright infringement by obsessive recourse to the same small and strange cast of lighthouse-keepers, fishermen and clockmakers. A new study from Cornell University has found that leading language models seem to have a strange obsession with a very narrow selection of narrative elements, when you ask the model to simply ‘write a story’.
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