It’s not that hard to write a couple of sentences of original thought to show minimal interest.

You might get disqualified by some automatic process that filters on length. Nobody will most likely read those couple of sentences anyway. And ironically, if they do, they might think you're lazy for writing only 2 and would rather go with the guy that has a longer cover not AI-generated.

That is actually AI generated, because people thinking they can easily differentiate between them probably also think publicity has zero effects on them.

It's not unheard of to be applying to 50+ companies in the hopes of hearing back from 5. It's not a couple sentences - if you wrote three sentences per letter, thats 150 sentences.

As someone graduating at the end of this year, this is quite the understatement in my experience.

The constant, 0-feedback autorejections make this a demoralizing experience.