Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
The 2023 Collins Dictionary Word of the Year (WOTY) is AI, as in Artificial Intelligence. Collins defines AI as “abbreviation for artificial intelligence: the modeling of human mental functions by computer programs”.
The choice of the term AI might appear surprising, considering that AI has been around for almost 70 years as an academic discipline. What has changed in 2023, is that AI-driven Chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Claude would probably break the Turing Test for natural language processing and the production of human-like texts, and by the same token deal a serious blow to the domain of epistemology. Indeed, in a topsy-turvy outcome, computer scientists are now designing new tests to defeat machines vs. trying to program them so that they behave like humans—or at least fool humans into believing they are also human.
The Turing Test was designed by Alan Turing in 1950. The test consisted in challenging computer scientists to design a machine that would exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. When carried out, the Turing Test would invoke interaction between a human testing two interlocutors, one of which would be a machine. If the human, who was testing the two interlocutors, could not tell the difference between the machine interlocutor and the human interlocutor, then the machine would have passed the test, as it would be exhibiting behavior indistinguishable from that of a human.
In 2023, considering how Natural Language Processing (NLP), Large Language Models (LLMs) and deep Machine Learning (ML) can combine to respond to human queries for specific information, using Chatbots for example, computer scientists are now looking for ways to devise new challenging, and even simple tests that underscore what the machine still cannot do like humans. Thus, for example, computer scientists are designing simple visual logic puzzles, which stump AI-driven programs, when compared to human performance on the same tests (Biever, 2023).
However, at the end of the day, user beware! Before falling-head-over-heels for AI-driven ChatGPT, assumed to already exhibit conversational performance largely equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of humans, remember that passing the Turing Test means being fooled by a machine. The above Collins animated GIF offers a few cases in point.
References
Biever, C. (July 25, 2023). ChatGPT broke the Turing test — the race is on for new ways to assess AI. Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02361-7
Chi, C. (Nov. 29, 2023). AI chatbots: Our top 18 picks for 2023.
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-ai-chatbot
Guy, J. (Nov. 1, 2023). Collins Dictionary picks ‘AI’ as its word of the year.
Shariatmadari, D. (Nov. 1, 2023). The acceleration of AI and other 2023 trends. Collins Language Lovers Blog.
https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/the-acceleration-of-ai-and-other-2023-trends/
(Staff) The Collins Dictionary word of the year is ….
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