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   it's B! Cavello 🐝 (b_cavello@mastodon.publicinterest.town)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Dec-2024 00:38:55 JST it's B! Cavello 🐝

   Another way to #TalkBetterAboutAI is to try to avoid personifying language.

   This is TOUGH.

   Personifying stuff is so useful for explaining things. It's really hard to avoid, and often explaining things more accurately can take a couple more words. It is tough.

   But I think it's worth it, too.

   By talking about these tools as tools, it helps us recognize both our own agency and impact as users of the tools, but it also can help clarify the role of the people who created these tools.

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     it's B! Cavello 🐝 (b_cavello@mastodon.publicinterest.town)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Dec-2024 00:38:53 JST it's B! Cavello 🐝

     in reply to

     One way to #TalkBetterAboutAI when referring to use of #TextGenerators is to try using words like "typed," "input," or "entered" instead of "asked."

     To describe the text generator (aka #LLM) behavior, instead of "answered," try "generated" or even "completed" or "continued."

     It might feel a bit awkward. (I know it does for me!) But I think it could be a useful experiment, at least, to practice reframing our relationship to these tools.

     What are phrases you would use to #TalkBetterAboutAI?

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     it's B! Cavello 🐝 (b_cavello@mastodon.publicinterest.town)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Dec-2024 00:38:54 JST it's B! Cavello 🐝

     in reply to

     Because the interface design of many text generators is meant to mimic a conversation with another person, people will often describe their interactions as "having a conversation with" or "asking" these tools.

     But I do not "ask" autocorrect when I am typing and it prompts me with possible phrases, even if what I typed before ends in a question mark.

     That is what these tools are doing: providing possible endings or continuations of what came before. They are text generators generating text.

     Børge repeated this.
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     it's B! Cavello 🐝 (b_cavello@mastodon.publicinterest.town)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Dec-2024 00:38:55 JST it's B! Cavello 🐝

     in reply to

     When we talk about #AI systems like #chatGPT, one thing we can do to help people understand what they do is to not describe our interactions like a conversation.

     Using #TextGenerators can definitely FEEL like a conversation. ESPECIALLY when the designers and implementers of these tools built interfaces that look like chat windows and replicate the indicators we've come to recognize as someone else typing.

     The creators of these interfaces are misleading people with these design elements.