File under: AI Resistance
I'm reading – and enjoying immensely – @emilymbender and @alex's book #TheAICon.
I've been learning a lot of things and something that really stood out recently is the need to be careful about the language we use to describe these systems. Bender and Hanna helpfully explain:
"It matters what words we use when we talk about these technologies. For instance, in our writing, we don’t use the term “hallucination” to discuss the errors of LLMs, for two reasons. First, if it’s used tongue-in-cheek, it is making light of what can be symptoms of serious mental illness. Second,
“hallucination” refers to the experience of perceiving things that aren’t there. But LLMs actually don’t have perceptions, and suggesting that they do is yet more unhelpful anthropomorphization. That means we also avoid assigning thought processes to these systems, or saying that they can
“think”. Metaphors have power, they structure the frames of discourse, and they can subtly and insidiously encourage certain ways of understanding technology and the social systems it is embedded in."
Antropomorphizing AI contributes to AI hype. Thanks Emily and Alex for helping me see things this way!
