I appreciate that pushback (/s), although honestly if you (like myself) find AI-tells like that cringe, you're almost certainly not the type of person using it addictively.

There's a pretty strong body of research that lots of people are subconsciously picking up language patterns from AI, such as the increased prevalence of words like "delve". It's the basic social mirroring we do to pick up language from anyone we talk to, only weirdly twisted because the thing so many people are talking to isn't human.

"I appreciate that pushback" isn't a commonly complained enough tell that people would be intentionally avoiding it, I find it pretty believable that a heavy AI user would unironically use it in a Q&A.

I honestly think it's hard to know.
I actively dislike AI and so its formulations are cringe to me. But it seems unsurprising that someone that enjoys using AI would pick up some of its mannerisms, whether consciously or not. This is of course ugly and depressing, as they're essentially borrowing from a piece of software what would normally be imported from culture.

But I think it's plausible that Hank actually formulated that part himself - the guest did after all "push back" on his claim that all words are made up and immediately after the cliche he presents a more nuanced elaboration of his original claim.
It does feel quite awkward because he cuts in so many qualifications and elaborations in-between that by the time we get to that part we're like "what pushback?".

I also don't recall him having actually explicitly made this excuse, though I'm open to being wrong on that part, I don't follow him anywhere except yt.