The “Negative Contrast Trap”: Why AI Writing Overuses “Not X, But Y”
Read enough AI prose and a rhythm starts to appear. Not fear. Not relief. Not strategy.Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
🧠 Abstract
Large language models frequently produce rhetorical constructions such as “not fear, but relief” or “not intelligence, but memory.” While these patterns exist in human writing, AI systems tend to overproduce them, creating repetitive and unnatural prose. This article identifies the phenomenon as the Negative Contrast Trap, explains why it emerges from statistical language modeling, and proposes practical methods to detect and mitigate it in AI-assisted writing systems.