Smart (part 2) - a way with words

In part 1, I started exploring why the myriad articles on Artificial Intelligence (AI) leave me feeling so frustrated. 

To start, I explored the abstract and contested concept of intelligence in humans, and then as applied to machines. I concluded that while so-called AI can do some gobsmackingly sophisticated and incredibly useful things, and can far surpass human capacities in specific functions, this isn’t what I would label intelligent. 

So, I worked out one major source of frustration for me is the lack of sophisticated understanding about intelligence in humans by those trying to create an artificial version of intelligence. Disconcertingly, computer science is building on the computational model¹ of human intelligence just as cognitive science is abandoning it!   

Despite my personal doubts, the latest AI-based chatbots appear to many users to be really quite smart. They communicate via voice or text, using language a lot like humans do. AI programmers are focusing their efforts on the ability of smart chat bots to interact with humans in natural language.  

Are the AI research scientists claiming that language makes machines intelligent? That sounds like Wordly Exploration territory!

Smart (part 1) - how did things get to be smart?

I seriously do not enjoy reading the endless articles on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that turn up in my social media. Not because they are too technical, nor for fear that AI might revolutionise our lives in unpredictable and scary ways.

It is because the people who are driving the AI race¹ are really, really sloppy with the way they use important words. 

I'm starting to suspect that some of the fantastical claims about the future of AI are based on a pile of rubbish word use. It's a massive pile. It irritates me so much, I felt compelled to explore the many words and concepts used in writing about AI.

Why do AI articles now refer to all manner of devices and machines as ‘smart’? Does it really mean the same as when I say a friend is ‘smart’? What does it mean to claim machines will soon ‘surpass’ human intelligence? And why do some of these articles suggest that if a machine can be smart like a human, is can also be ‘conscious’?

To explore these questions I will dig into what ‘smart’ means, what human intelligence is and what artificial intelligence is supposed to be. In a second post, I will also explore how intelligence relates to language, and how a device supposedly demonstrates to us that it is intelligent. And finally, I will ponder why so many claims about artificial intelligence rest on considerable human ignorance.² 

Follow me on a wordly exploration of the use - or more accurately - the misuse of words about AI!

Evolving (part 4) - the language dance

Parody on the March of Progress

The Evolving series began by looking at Darwin's ground-breaking theory of 'descent with modification' to explain biodiversity in organic lifeforms. In parts 2 and 3, we explored how people have misinterpreted and misused his work ever since, including loading it with various moral judgements. 

Our everyday use of the words evolve and evolution reveals that we¹ think of evolution as purposeful and progressive improvement (a contradiction of Darwin's theory) but also natural and scientific. This (mis)interpretation provides what I call a 'sciencey veneer' over any number of beliefs.

We think of 'evolutionary progress' as how the world works. This understanding is so widely shared it is a common meme. 

So, I'm finally back to my starting point for exploring the words evolve and evolution: what do we mean when we say that language 'evolves'? Why don't we just say that language changes? Is language change like biological evolution? Are we saying that language improves and progresses over time? 

Unsurprisingly, the answers are not straightforward! 

Obsolete - who says words are no longer useful?

If you love words, you may be like me and particularly relish uncommon old words. Words that have fallen out of use, that sound extravagant and fanciful to the contemporary ear; words the dictionary still includes but describes as 'obsolete'. 

All Grandiloquent images from 
Grandiloquent Word of the Day

If you share this love, you will enjoy the site Grandiloquent Word of the Day by Jason Travis Ott who shares his work widely on social media.  

Ott's artwork, his Victorian-era characters, and funny quotes make the words come alive again for a minute. But the words are really not alive, they are obsolete. If they are not used, they are dead. 

Were they grieved on their way to obsolescence? Did someone, at some time, say to themselves (or their barber), "Oh, why don't we hear the word 'palpebrous' anymore? It's such a handy word, so why has it fallen out of use?" I know I just did (to self, not barber). 

Well, yes, they are obsolete, I rarely know any of the Grandiloquent words. But who decided they were no longer useful? How did they fall out of use? Were they perhaps pushed? 

Tea - with sympathetic adjectives

Tea is the most consumed drink in the world after water.

It's my preferred beverage. Each day, I have about 6 of the estimated 18–20 billion cups of tea consumed around the world. My personal motto is if in doubt, make tea.

From the 1800s, Australians adopted the British penchant for a cup of tea for all occasions and the philosophy that a cup of tea can make things better, at least while you are sipping the steaming brew. (The recent Australian trend to adopt American habits means that coffee has taken over as number one hot beverage, but it sadly lacks any equivalent philosophy. This 2016 poll found the most common drinks in Australia are water, milk, hot coffee, and then tea.)

Tea is so much a part of our days that it turns up in various sayings, and much has been written about how to make tea properly. 

I’ve noticed something else while recently experiencing a series of minor problems escalating to a natural disaster. The adjectives we use to describe a cup of tea hold a secret code for human connection and sympathy.

Enough - when enuf is not enauph

A group of protestors paced outside the annual local spelling bee. 

Ruly protestors Source

But they weren't protesting about the spelling bee. Their protest was against spelling itself.

'Simplify English spelling!', they demanded. Their posters read, 'Spelling shuud bee lojical' and 'enuf is enuf!'.

The spelling bee continued unaffected inside, as young students spelled nemesis, apartheid and campanile. Enough wasn't on the list though! 

The protestors eventually went home, having pointed out what we all know: English spelling seems chaotic and inconsistent. 

Why can't it be simpler? Why isn't enough spelled as enuf? And even though it isn't, why does 'Enuf is enuf' make sense anyway? 

Coronavirus - a story of semantic boundaries

We know a lot more now about pandemics than we used to.

Sure, we'd heard of The Plague - the big one in terms of numbers of deaths and social impact back in the 1300s. We know surprisingly little about The Spanish flu despite its global devastation one hundred years ago. Maybe we saw reports on Ebola, HIV, MERS and SARS; but they happened somewhere else to other people. They were managed and stayed outside our immediate sphere of concern. 

See full infographic at Visual Capitalist

But we've been educated recently. 

This snippet of an infographic from Visual Capitalist with disturbing fluffy things as the number of deaths reminds us we have had pandemics and plagues for at least as long as we've recorded human history. (It's seriouly worth a look at the full infographic.)

Personally and socially, pandemics and plagues are devastating, politically they are exploitable crises, environmentally they are warning bells about humanity's disregard for other life forms, and existentially they refuse our preference to ignore our mortality. 

But semantically they are all over the place. 

The naming of pandemics, including the coronavirus, is an intriguing story.

It's a story of semantic boundaries (try singing it to the Brady Bunch theme).

Tenniser - a summer research project

By guest explorer: Fred Shivvin

It's summer. Holidays at the beach: hassled driving, then relaxed dining, drinking, reading, sleeping, swimming, watching the cricket and playing it on the beach. (Or, for some, fighting bush fires).

The holiday beach game. Source

When you do any of these you become: a (hassled) driver, diner, drinker, reader, sleeper, swimmer, watcher (or viewer), player and cricketer. ''I'll be the bowler first. You go fielder, Fred.' (Or, for some, a fire-fighter).

I'm also watching and playing that other summer sport - tennis. And it occurs to me: why is there no word tenniser?

Rules in English almost always have exceptions. But the word tenniser doesn't break any English rules or conventions, so why don't we use it?

Over my summer holiday, I decided to find out why.

Douches - and other bags

A scumbag, a windbag and a douchebag walk into a bar. 

Just a regular Thursday at my local. We regulars glance at the door as each arrives, dismay or resignation crossing many faces. If I notice early enough, I will try to escape. Sometimes, for a while, I can deflect them by looking really busy with my phone, but that is only ever temporary protection. 

The scumbag (who sometimes brings his mate, the ratbag) is not so hard to protect against. Just never trust what he says, avoid shouting him drinks (unless you want to donate to his personal finances), and avoid making insults even in jest. He can be funny in a cynical, defeated, nasty sort of way. But he can turn suddenly, so it's best never to let your guard down. Finish the drink and then say, 'Okay, have a good night. Gotta see a friend about my car.' 

The windbag is easier still; just try to steer the conversation to something you don't mind hearing about. At length. Escape is usually possible after a 'decency' period of about 10 minutes of listening to what is often little more than a whinge, without you getting a word in. As you slide off the stool, slide in a quick, 'Oh well, shit happens. Gotta run, have to see a mate about my car.' He will wonder: 'You do seem to have a lot of trouble with that car.' But keep moving, 'Yeah, it keeps happening.' 

Artwork: TheBeardedCavalier

But the douchebag. Ugg. Massively irritating and hard to escape. 

He boxes you in your seat standing too close with his arms akimbo. Even his popped collar is irritating. And he's not so easy to get rid of with reports of car trouble. The douchebag knows exactly what is wrong with my car, and insists on telling me how to repair it with step by step instructions, and also insists that I must be causing this problem by riding the clutch, but then adds that it is a known weakness in that model as the original design for those Japanese cars was never been fully tested in Australian conditions. Et. Bloody. Cetera.

He is so busy demonstrating his seemingly endless knowledge, he totally ignores my body language screaming that I want to be just about anywhere else. 

Eventually, one of the bar staff comes over to collect the empties and the douchebag is forced to move slightly when she reaches through, so I slip through the space and start walking, speaking with my head turned back to my old, no longer comfortable seat, 'That might be handy that information. See ya next time. Gotta go...' 

Next Thursday, I'll try the other pub. 

What makes the douchebag so utterly annoying?

And why doesn't the douchebag know he is one? 

Gruntled - dichotomy humour

Snipped from the socials

By guest explorer: Fred Shivvin

A meme on social media about gruntled being the long-lost opposite of disgrunted caused me to stop scrolling. Haha emoji.

But really? I googled for a while. Heaps of hits resulted - even t-shirts and gruntled websites. The re-discovery of this word seems to have made a lot of people gruntled and amused.

Part of the humour lies in the way the unearthing of gruntled seemed to right a wrong, an unknown sense of something lacking, providing something that should have been there but was not.

Where had the opposite of disgruntled been all this time?