> As a technical writer, I believe default AI responses are optimized for what people _think_ is good writing rather than what actually is good writing.

At least in the case of ChatGPT - it was (and mostly still is) objectively optimized for engagement. Since ChatGPT was leading the way, and much distilling has occurred, there are at least partial remnants of that problem everywhere.

The Chinese models may or may not really care about this at all, but they're doing a lot of distilling, so they're getting it whether they want it or not.

The American models for the most part care about engagement - some a lot more than others.