Northeastern linguists document AI's effect on everyday language
4 Sep 18 10:35 AM · 8d ago · 1 post · 8 comments · 1 source · development 4 of 6
A Northeastern University piece features professors Terra Blevins, Sofia Teixeira and Heather Littlefield describing how chatbot use is shifting vocabulary (words like 'delve' and 'insight'), sentence structure across languages, and stylistic norms in writing.
“There's no preventing language change”
Heather LittlefieldLuciano Floridi Philosopher cited in the science.org articleTerra Blevins Northeastern Khoury College professorHeather Littlefield Northeastern linguistics professorSofia Teixeira Professor, Northeastern Network Science Institute London
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This is my opinion. I think it's just the way it talks to you.1. It doesn't get tired or frustrated during a discussion.2. It'll engage every single one of your questions/statements (besides hitting guardrails).3. It'll appeal to the person's own ego even when the person is wrong and work around it.4. It's not seen as a person (very important)…
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First, to get it out of the way: I'm seeing comments here that clearly haven't read the article. I encourage you all to do that.I feel the article gets it right when suggesting it's the amount of (not always accurate!) data they can throw at you. In an honest discussion there's an assumption that the other person won't straight up lie to me so if…
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The example in the article has another important aspect: The person understood they were arguing with a chatbot but continued anyway.A lot of internet arguments become about identity politics and supporting the right team, while dismissing any argument from the other side as presumed to have bad intentions. I’ve seen people argue online for things…
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>In an honest discussion there's an assumption that the other person won't straight up lieThe particular problem with honest discussions is you are the only agent that you can be sure is having one. Honest discussion is formulated on trust and trust, as we are learning, is a very difficult thing to establish. For example, in my view anything…
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> Floridi has a counterintuitive solution: Release more of them. “Simply put, if you cannot avoid it, then make it pluralistic and diversified,” he writes in his 2024 paper. “It would be a messy, cacophonic, and noisy world, but it could also be less manipulative.”Hell no. More choice is not an infinite money glitch.Putting more and more and more…
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> “But I think that this is a pretty artificial setup in terms of how people in the real world would be able to change people’s minds.”I see not everyone is familiar with how social network debates happen. It also seems they are quite convincing, as politicians are employing AI bots extensively.
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One of the depressing things about this is that they’ll also confidently repeat a consensus that’s in their training. This is particularly obvious when there’s been a new event just past their training cutoff, and they confidently tell you that can’t be true.
All 6 developments of AI chatbots now out-persuade humans in debates, research… →
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