This and that

GPT often uses “that” when it would be better to use “this”. When challenged it told me…

“Deixis: English uses “this” for proximal reference and “that” for distal. When I revise, sentences move. The mental anchor can lag behind the new position, so I keep the distal “that” even though the referent is now immediately local. Result: wrong demonstrative.

Anaphora overreach: In analytical passages, I sometimes default to “that” to signal evaluative distance. Here you wanted literal proximity, not rhetorical distance.”

Underneath it, it’s just the model choosing the lower-risk pronoun unless I smack it on the nose for being vague and lazy.