It doesn’t matter what you want, I’m just describing how language works.
If everyone says a word means a thing, then it means that thing. Words can have multiple meanings.
Comment on Lemmy be like
sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 4 days agoNot really, since “AI” is a pre-existing and MUCH more general term which has been intentionally commandeered by bad actors to mean a particular type of AI.
AI remains a broader field of study.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
AI remains a broader field of study, an active field of study which tons of people are invested in, and they use AI to refer to the broader field of study in which they’re professionally invested.
I’m just describing how language works.
No you’re not. And you’re not as smart as you think you are.
If everyone says a word means a thing
It’s not literally everybody, and you know it, and you also know that LLMs are not the entire actual category of AI.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
That is beyond pedantry.
That is how language works. Word definitions are literally just informal consensus agreement. Dictionaries are just descriptions of observed usage. Not literally everyone needs to agree on it.
This isn’t some kind of independent conclusion I came to on my own; I used to think like you appear to, but then I watched some explanations from authors and from professional linguists, and they changed my mind about language prescriptivism.If you say “AI” in most contexts, more people will know what you mean than if you say “LLM”. If your goal is communication, then by that measure “AI” is “more correct” (but again, correctness isn’t even applicable here)
sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
People still know what LLMs are, and they know that it’s a subset of AI. If the internet is swamped with bots actively trying to set linguistic habits for marketing reasons, you’re not required to perpetuate and validate that.
Shills and goons are trying to make “AI” refer to LLMs specifically. It’s an ad campaign. You’re not getting paid to perpetuate this stupidity.
occultist8128@infosec.pub 4 days ago
I completely agree. Using AI to refer specifically to LLMs does reflect the influence of marketing from companies that may not fully represent the broader field of artificial intelligence. Sounds ironic to those who oppose LLM usage might end up sounding like the very bad actors they criticize if they also use the same misleading terms.
sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
This hype cycle is insane, and the gross psychology of the hype obscures the real usefulness of LLMs.
occultist8128@infosec.pub 4 days ago
As a non-English main, Deepl is useful for my locals (and for me). It’s just how it’s implemented. Still being open-minded, yeah, the extensive resource usage is bad for the earth tho, wishing there would be optimization.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
I don’t get to decide if the marketing terms used by the companies I hate end up becoming the common terms.
If I stubbornly refuse to use the common terms and instead only use the technical terms, then I’m only limiting the reach of my message.
OpenAI marketing has successfully made LLM one of the definitions of the term AI, and the most common term used to refer to the tech, in public spaces.
occultist8128@infosec.pub 3 days ago
That’s where your role takes part as someone who knows the correct term. I myself often teach my close ones about tech and its terms in my field. I don’t want to normalize using wrong terms in a technical discussion. It’s just depending on us to teach what’s right or just being comfortable what is already wrong and doing nothing about it. Activists are educators as much as they are advocates.