LLM stories show higher narrative similarity than human ones across 10 models, with frontier models converging on generic narratives and standard mitigations failing to increase diversity.
LLMs Generate Kitsch
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abstract
Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used to generate pictures, texts, music, videos, and other works that have traditionally required human creativity. LLM-generated artifacts are often rated better than human-generated works in controlled studies. At the same time, they can come across as generic and hollow. We propose to resolve this tension by arguing that LLMs systematically generate kitsch, and that this is a consequence of the way in which they are trained. We also show empirically that readers perceive LLM-generated stories as kitschier, if we control for their definition of "kitsch". We discuss implications for the design of future studies and for creative tasks such as research and coding.
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cs.CL 1years
2026 1verdicts
UNVERDICTED 1representative citing papers
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Do Large Language Models Always Tell The Same Stories?
LLM stories show higher narrative similarity than human ones across 10 models, with frontier models converging on generic narratives and standard mitigations failing to increase diversity.