The use of language depends on who is talking to whom. You might swear like a trooper with your mates in the pub, but possibly not in front of the vicar at your daughter’s first communion. You might disclose intimate feelings to a romantic partner that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to know. When explaining how gravity works, a teacher would choose their words differently depending on whether the curious listener is in primary school or has a physics PhD. Politicians, in particular, have to be magisterial language-gamers. They play one game when a public microphone is on – and they are trying to appeal to a broad audience – and another when it is off, and they are sharing confidences with colleagues. When a mic mistakenly remains on – or ‘hot’ – these games get mixed up. In 2012 French President Jacques Chirac was famously caught on a hot mic revealing to fellow European leaders Putin and Schroeder what he really thought about the British: ‘The only thing that they have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease. You cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine.’

Christopher Summerfield, These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means (2024)