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?

It's certainly been tarnished by LLM-bros coopting the term for marketing/grifting purposes

Yes, we have.

"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.

Well one thing we can do is tell the fuckwits who want computer games without AI to learn literally anything about the subject.

We could use terms like "predictive systems" or "expert systems" or "monster control systems", but they're all more specific. I say we keep using the term AI when talking about the field in general and when someone complains tell them to stop talking nonsense, and then keep using the correct term.

I'm doing my part by only calling it machine learning or LLMs. I do my best to avoid calling it AI

Now “literally” also means “figuratively,” even within the dictionary.

That's literally true... Like in the literal sense... STOP WINKING AT ME!

Ideally, AI is the larger umbrella term for just about anything. It should not be the term used when speaking critically of a specific kind of AI: NPC AI, TTS (text to speech), STT (speech to text), ML models for vision, GenAI (LLMs, image generators, audio generators, video generators) etc.

When speaking critically, most people do mean "GenAI" and that should be the distinction.

The term "artificial intelligence" was first used in the 50s, so video game AI wasn't the original meaning either. Arguably neither video game AI nor machine learning AI are proper AI, but the term has always been very malleable. I don't think the other meanings are lost. If you say "the enemies in this game have bad AI", people aren't going to think that you mean LLMs.

I always preface it with Generative AI if I am going to use it

I work in the games industry and AI is already widely in use for NPC behaviour

I'm still trying to figure out when "bucket list" came to mean a todo list with a deadline rather than a list of things to do before you die.

From the employer's perspective, there is no difference.

This reminds me of the same naming treatment that telephones got, once something else got called a phone

The short answer is probably yes.

Maybe it's a quote I read somewhere, but basically everybody agrees that language changes over time, but nobody wants to admit that it changes during their lifetime. I think the only thing to do, rather than campaign for or against one form or another, is to do what you've already been doing and make yourself understood given the context of the situation.

In terms of technical accuracy, new variables have been introduced that are--through no fault of your own--making you less understandable. I think, though, that it still falls to you to make yourself understood, either by brute force and using your definitions regardless, or by being more descriptive.

“Crypto” is the big one for me, always was cryptography but yah, that one has been taken over by the shitcoins now…sigh.

I guess people don’t know ASI is a thing.

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.

People are stupid. They will. Give it time.

figure it out should be on your bucket list

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

That’s not at all what a bucket list is

edit: unclear, my meaning was “a random todo list with a date is not a ‘bucket list’” - to me a bucket list is a list of things to do before you die

u/CallMeAI already described two interpretations, which is the 3rd you're proposing?

I think you're referring to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and super intelligence (SI) or artificial super intelligence (ASI). Both were coined many years ago (~30) to differentiate from AI, which was already being used for much more than the original definition (which was meant to be AGI, or even ASI.)

For all three, GIF, hacker, AI, you just have to accept that language is fluid. Words are co-opted from other places all the time to describe new things. And to be honest, all of those terms have been used for meanings outside their original one for almost as long as they've existed, especially on the scale of human language.

I used to lament the term "drone" being used for remote control quadcopters... But the world won, so I have to stop being a nerd about it, and accept that it has a broader meaning now.

And just to note, people don't just mean genAI when they say AI now. They use AI for everything. You wrote a program to track workouts in a database? Better call it... "AI!"

If context isn't given, in a professional setting- 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.

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

"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.

I read this as the name Al. Fonts are tricky.

But yes, my hermes agent is named AI Gore.

My personal pet peeve on this stuff is the word algorithm. Talk about a word that means something completely different to technical folks than non-technical.

The definition of algorithm is any well defined step by step procedure to solve a problem. To the nontechnical it means specifically an algorithm used by social media to rank and recommend things. Makes reading about social media incredibly eye rolling

The hill I'm willing to die on is that "cyber" is short for cybersex, not cybersecurity or cyberspace as appropriated by the military.

a list of things to do before you die.

That is exactly what a bucket list is. It's a list of things you want to do before you "kick the bucket".

how about a list of buckets?

It is usually one person not fully understanding the meaning, using it wrong and no one correcting them. I know a guy that does it all the time, and then he says "you know what I meant". No, I did not!

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.

We called your kind of AI game theory.

The current kind was just artificial neural networks.

Lost as in the definition has changed and it isn't going back so just get used to it, yes. That's how language works.

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?

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.

to be fair hackers could be all kinds of electronics and tech and depending what they are doing could also be called crackers or phreakers or such.

The term AI will evolve again because LLMs are just a temporary storm in a tea cup. Other forms of AI will come to the fore again and muddy the water.

I've always thought of AI purely as true "general AI", and think the term was misused before to describe complex algorithms etc. This is just the current phase of the misuse of the term AI.

"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.

Here is a video about a combat robot team using various algorithms to assist with driving. It includes the following:

• a robot team trying to explain how their neat driving assist technology works
• regular people mixing up ai and genai in the video
• commentors in the video doing the same thing
• a big company mixing up ai and genai just to spread more conflict / drama

I don't think the other meanings are lost. If you say "the enemies in this game have bad AI", people aren't going to think that you mean LLMs.

The ai techbros won. We're already here.

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.

I'm not sure you're realizing the difference between enemy AI and generative art AI.

I'll still call them UAVs.

But I don't think the original definition of AI was AGI... can you say more?

Don’t worry: it will be “Super Intelligence“ now.

I think I saw a TikTok talking about it. It was first mentioned in a movie. I am not sure if it is from this or from the last century. But less than 40 years.

care to elaborate?

AI was coined in the 50's and was broadly meant to be "a computer that can behave like a human" in terms of reasoning, and self-improvement. It kind of put a name to what Alan Turing was working on with the Imitation Game/Turing Test, which he hinted would require a "learning" aspect.

In Sci-Fi, and generally in computer science, that was what was meant by AI for a long time, maybe with Sci-Fi taking it further into the super intelligence realm (e.g. in Neuromancer), until people started applying the term to smaller research items like math problem solvers, expert systems, machine learning, computer speech and recognition. Once that became more prevalent, AGI was coined.

OP is very much aware of this. You missed their point.

If you know, you know.