Everything is getting stuffed with AI these days, no matter how pointless its inclusion may seem. Your spell-checker, your local drive-thru, your fridge — nothing is safe.
So you can understand why we were alarmed when Merriam-Webster, the dictionary company, announced that it was releasing its own large language model, too.
“It is the dawn of the AI era,” says a narrator in a video shared by the company. “And we are proud to introduce our latest large language model.”
“It never hallucinates. It does not require data centers, and uses no electricity,” the booming voice continues. “It’s a powerful tool that will change how you communicate — forever.”
Then the video cuts to the reveal. It’s Merriam-Webster’s newest “Collegiate Dictionary,” the 12th edition, which was announced last week. A glorious, actually physical book, slowly rotating. Not a prompt box in sight. A red tome, as opposed to a black box.
“There’s artificial intelligence,” another voice says. “And then there’s actual intelligence.”
It’s a great bit of trolling that also spells out everything that’s wrong with AI — and above all, how silly it is that everyone’s rushing to adopt what remains an incredibly experimental form of technology with sketchy benefits and innumerable downsides. That the video’s gone slightly viral is a testament to the anxiety surrounding that rush: we’re all holding our breath and wincing in anticipation of which of our favorite brands or celebrities will suddenly cave to the stuff.
What also makes it especially pertinent is that the tech’s relationship to our “actual intelligence,” as Merriam-Webster’s video puts it, is pretty scary. Research has shown how depending on the chatbot can atrophy our critical thinking skills and even erode our memory — not to mention leading some folks down a delusional and dangerous mental health spiral.
Nonetheless, schools and colleges are finding ways to force AI tools onto their pupils, too, with one university making all its new students to use AI in class. There’s also, we have to mention, the rampant cheating that chatbots get used for. Why actually learn stuff when ChatGPT can spit out an entire essay for you? In fairness to lazy students, some of their professors are using the tech as well.
Anyway, the new “Collegiate Dictionary” has been 22 years in the making. It comes with 5,000, brand-spanking new words, like “rizz,” “beast mode,” “doomscroll,” and “dumbphone” — all of the hot new lingo that we’re sure will age just as fine as this current bout of AI quackery. It may not be able to scour the entire internet for answers or use tens of thousands of GPUs to “think” hard about questions like “how many Bs are there in the word ‘blueberry'” and still get it wrong, but hey: the ol’ printed word is doing an admirable job of keeping up with our whirlwind times.
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