A hacker was once a computer enthusiast, and the media made it into a name for criminals who break into other people’s systems.
Decades ago, people started using baud when they meant BPS. Not many technical people back then, but it wasn’t possible to correct the few who made the mistake. Even one top member of the CCC (Chaos Computer Club) said it’s just “baud” now, no matter the real meaning.
(baud = symbols per second. A symbol can transport multiple bits, so a V.32 modem with 9600 bps worked at 2400 baud, 4 bits per symbol.)
GIF is an image format. Multiple frames stored in such a file can get played like a video. But today every video without sound gets called a GIF.
AI is an old term. But today most people say AI but only mean genAI.
It’s even more absurd: There are gamers who demand computer games without AI. WTF?
AI was always part of computer games. Even the early computerized board games. I remember Half-Life fans loving the enemy AI. And I think one of the games in the Wolfenstein franchise had enemies that found cover when shot at. That’s normal, old AI. Not genAI.
If AI is really lost, how do we discuss the thing that was once considered AI?
Haha. Language, culture and society, golly all I can say is, sometimes it do be like that…
no one says Baud, that one is up for grabs
Baud.
“Lost?”
None of those terms have been lost. They’ve just come to have a wider definition than before. Language evolves over time as people are exposed to new ideas, words, or terms. As non-technical people begin using the terms, the meaning has an understood meaning to the public that most people use (e.g. AI/genAI), and a technical definition that is still understood by those it is relevant to. It just requires context.
Yes, words have meaning- but words also change over time as the public understanding shifts. Just like the word “literally.” It used to mean something that is/should be interpreted exactly as it is said/written/shown. Now “literally” also means “figuratively,” even within the dictionary.
So, no. It isn’t lost, you just need to give context about what form of “AI” you are referring to.
I’m gonna reuse an old comment here
“literally” being used to mean “figuratively” dates back to 3 years after the word “literally” began meaning “actually”. If this is a hill to die on, you need to use “literally” exclusively to mean “as written in the texts”. Common usage of “literally” to mean “actually” and “figuratively” both date to the 1590s
Now “literally” also means “figuratively,” even within the dictionary.
That’s literally true… Like in the literal sense… STOP WINKING AT ME!
Irregardless isn’t even setting off spell checkers. “Without having lack of regard”, fucking what?
Our language is evolving into useless shit, and I despise people who do not respect language and definitions. “Oh, language is evolving!”
Yeah, velociraptors evolved into chickens: how did that shit work out? /being facetious, before someone with poor language skills happens to be a paleontologist snaps back
You’re fighting the tide. There’s never been a point in time where language had fixed, immutable definitions. It’s always been transient, no matter what you learned, and it’s not a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just how communication and culture work.
I am pretty sure we came up with DEFINITIONS. Now what does that word mean?
I having been fighting a tide of idiocy my entire life, but it doesn’t mean I will drown in it.
Definitions are found, not made. ;)
Objects are found. We define objects. Then we make words. This seems so simple and people seem to want to make it complex.
Eh, I’ve been learning about linguistics and it’s changed my view on the topic.
I think it’s valid to have a visceral hatred for contranyms.
I’m not saying you can’t hate them, but I am saying that all you’ll achieve by that is getting angry all the time.
irregardless
“Inflammable” means flammable!
It would make more sense if it was written “enflammable”, similar to French.
But both forms are acceptable… meaning in French, you can have “ininflammable”!
“Literally” is used as a superlative. The “literally means figuratively” thing tends to refer exaggerations. “I’m literally dying” or “That’s literally hotter than the sun”.
It’s a stand in for “really” which has a double meaning
- Adverb form of “real”
- Expressive form, to convey intensity
But yes, we never “lost” the word. Some online grammar pedants simply refused to accept it as a homonym.
Because both meanings are opposites, literally is a more specialized form of homonym called a contronym. Unlike a contronym such as clip where it’s to tell whether the speaker is talking about clipping things together or clipping stuff off of something based on their use in a sentence, literally and figuratively fit into any sentence the same way. In any case where the speaker’s words could be interpreted ambiguously to be literal or figurative and they add literally to clarify they can’t because someone could mistake their literal literally meaning to be a figurative one.
That means the literal use of literally is functionally lost, and for what? So folks have another way to exaggerate? I don’t care if a language evolves, but if it’s going to I think it should evolve in such a way that expressing certain ideas isn’t lost, especially if there isn’t anything real to be gained. I literally don’t understand why people are so gun-ho to defend using literally figuratively.
Because both meanings are opposites
“really” -> “extremely” is not the opposite of “really” -> “factually”.
the literal use of literally is functionally lost
It isn’t functionally lost any more than “really” has become functionally lost. It’s contingent on context.
“It’s really hot outside” and “He’s really the murderer” have two very coherent and distinct interpretations.
In the same vein, “It’s literally as hot as the sun out here” and “This Christian extremists are taking the Bible too literally” have distinct and non-interchangeable meanings.
But the term has (ahem) LITERALLY been used as an intensifier since 1769. You’re far too late to the party on this debate. It’s LITERALLY been settled for centuries.
How can it literally be settled if people are still arguing about it? Unless you mean figuratively? Good to know people two and a half centuries ago could write poorly.
How can it literally be settled if people are still arguing about it?
Same way people can wave a Confederate Flag 150 years after the war is over.
I didn’t realize people had been shot for not using literally figuratively. Plus one could argue that people waving the Confederate flag 150 years later means the war wasn’t fully finished, but I’m not here to debate politics.
I don’t understand why you compare “literally” to “really”. They’re two different words that are used differently. I really don’t have any problem with using really as an intensifier because it aligns just fine with using it to indicate fact. “It’s really hot outside” -> “The heat outside is real.” “He’s really the murderer” -> “His being the murderer is real.”
But using literally in your example adds absolutely nothing to the sentence. “It’s literally as hot as the sun out here” and “It’s as hot as the sun out here” convey the exact same meaning, except one has an extra word that degrades other uses of it. If your sentence could replace the word “literally” with the word “figuratively” and you would intend the same meaning, you should either use “figuratively” or nothing there at all. That way when the word literally is used there can be no doubt that you mean “in the literal sense.”
Context is rarely given.
And the real meaning is important when the actual work has to be done.
“Allow users to upload and play GIFs.” And now I’m reading old specs from 1987 or try to use an existing GIF library. The boss is angry because he can’t upload his silent movie.
“This site needs AI.” And now I’m happily pruning some trees for the perfect minimax implementation. The manager asks me how many tokens it will need, and I say 0. They become suspicious.
Context doesnt have to be given, it exists regardless of instructions ; it’s your responsibility to infer and understand it, or ask questions if you feel like you’re missing important info
If context isn’t given, in a professional context- then that is a failing on the person communicating. Again, your examples are cleared up with context. The meaning isn’t gone, there is just more than one definition to those words now.
But there is a general definition. That’s the point isn’t it? Its a bit on the reader to get with that.
For example, if I say something about corn you should know what im talking about immediately. I shouldn’t have to specify the yellow vegetable also called maize just because a thousand years ago the word meant something else.
Did you fail to read the thread, or do you actually think you said anything that has bearing on the conversation?
It’s certainly been tarnished by LLM-bros coopting the term for marketing/grifting purposes
“Hacker” and “AI” are words made mostly useless by widespread misunderstandings about what they mean. “Baud” and “GIF” are words made more useful by people not caring about the technical details of what they used to mean.
That does not make it impossible to say things about hackers or AI. If you’ve got something substantial to say on either topic it’s not that hard to make it clear in context that you’re using the word in an unusually correct way.
It’s even more absurd: There are gamers who demand computer games without AI. WTF?
They don’t want genAI slop for visuals, writing, and other creative things in games. They are using AI in the context of those things and even give examples about how AI upscaling of textures in game design looks shitty and don’t want voice actors to be replaced with fake voices. They still want human creative involvement front and center because all the llm/genai image stuff is just ripping off existing stuff in the worst ways.
They aren’t talking about pathing or gameplay ai that has been around forever because the term AI has been coopted by genAI and that is what they are referring to.
They aren’t talking about pathing or gameplay ai that has been around forever because the term AI has been coopted by genAI and that is what they are referring to.
That was OP’s whole point
Then why would it be absurd for gamers to demand games without AI if the gamers don’t literally mean the older types of AI?
In video games, (enemy) AI can mean a pathfinding algorithm and a couple rules regarding the distance to the player
Because AI used to mean the older types of AI. It’s an example how the meaning of AI changed which OP is complaining about.
OP is very much aware of this. You missed their point.
Whoosh
Well, the term hack has been around a lot longer than computers. Its past meaning is just no longer valid. I was watching the old tv show The Odd Couple, Felix’s daughter said she just wanted to hack around, Felix had to ask what she meant. While she really couldnt explain, “you know dad, just, like, hack around”, which in this sense seems to mean doing nothing in particular. Saying “I couldn’t hack it” has a double meaning these days.
I have to explain to people that, yes, my paper was on AI but on a VERY specific one testing a specific use case of an ai trained to find cancer cells left over from surgery. Its not at ALL like the LLMs we are looking at now.
They also think mire GPUs and RAM ate going to make LLMs behave better haha. Its so funny what layman and industry thinks.
Don’t worry: it will be “Super Intelligence“ now.
There’s a German (kids’) story about someone who was renaming everything. He called the table a chair. But he then had to give the chair a new name.
Trump forgot to give the former superintelligence a new name.
I’m not sure you’re realizing the difference between enemy AI and generative art AI.
A Citroën 2CV, BMW Z3, and Ford Model T are all cars.
But now when someone says “car”, everyone assumes it’s a Citroën 2CV.
This is the crazy world of “all AI is genAI”.
I just act like Randal when someone says I “can’t say that” or use “that word” anymore.
You did it to yourselves by overreacting.
This reminds me of the same naming treatment that telephones got, once something else got called a phone
“GIF” as in giraffe, btw.
You forgot the biggest pronunciation hijack of the century.
I’ve always disliked these short and sweet justifications for one pronunciation over another as there’s a million justifications that can go either way.
Here’s an arguably more more apt example considering it contains every letter from the original acronym: “GIF” as in gift.
In my opinion, go with the one the causes less confusion. There’s already a brand using the “JIF” pronunciation and nothing else using the “GIF” pronunciation so I prefer the hard G pronunciation.
The developers of PNG at least documented the pronunciation right from the start: ping
I still call it P N G
If the inventor of .GIF was a linguist, maybe we would have used his suggestion. .GIF is a file format. JIF is a peanut-butter.
Gerraffe it is.
Some words that begin in gi have a j sound and some have a g sound. There’s no rule. English just be like that.
There’s giraffe and there’s girl.
There’s gibberish and there’s gibbon.
There’s gigantic and there’s gigabyte.
There’s ginger and there’s gingham.
The whole debate on GIF is dumb. Both pronunciations are acceptable. I would say it like gift personally, but there’s no reason to think that gif- has to sound like g vs j. There’s just no rule for it in English.
It might change with the next AI winter.
Also, the old “AI” was already a bit of a stretch from “artificial intelligence”.
In the meantime, I’ll probably refer to the old AI as “enemy controller”, at least in the code.
When I started learning the programming language Common Lisp, I thought there was only one AI winter. That’s all the Lisp bros were talking about and how awesome the Lisp machine was.
But recently I’m wishing for a new one and looked it up on Wikipedia: there were already several AI winters.
The next one will be the AI winter for the next decades.
