When AI simplifies a report, which words need to stay?

I'd happily lose ‘it is pertinent to note’. I'd fight to keep ‘likely’. Both can look disposable when you ask an AI assistant to make a report shorter and more confident. In the IPCC's 2023 Synthesis Report, ‘likely’ means an assessed probability of 66–100%; ‘very likely’ means 90–100%. These are defined terms, not a scientist being timid. The report separately describes confidence in terms of the underlying evidence and agreement. ‘High confidence’ is not another way of saying ‘90%’. For a plain-language summary, I'd ask the assistant to explain those terms where they first appear, then keep them attached to the findings. I'd also ask it to flag any edit that changes how certain a statement sounds. That's an editing suggestion, not a prompt tested by the IPCC or evidence that a particular chatbot fails this task. This is existing report guidance, not a new climate finding. And its probability ranges belong to its own defined language; don't paste them onto every use of ‘likely’ in another source. A good rewrite could help someone read a difficult report without spending their evening decoding it. It shouldn't require the author to sound more certain as the price of being understood.