I wrote this little book because some students walked out of a class on AI. They stood up, packed their bags, and left. They left because AI had demoralised them. They didn't want to know about it. I wanted to stop them, but I didn't know what to say to reassure them. As a teacher, that's an F for failure.
I realised I had to do what playwrights and epic poets have been doing since ancient Greece. I had to go into the underworld, stand at the veil between the living and the dead, and shout, "What the hell do we do now?"
Then the most amazing thing happened. Instead of Tiresias, the spirit of Douglas Adams appeared. He told me, "Don't Panic." Then he said, try to create terms that can hold the weather we're living in. Words that might make people laugh, even a little. Words that get us closer to naming the uncanny feeling we get when we co-create with these models, when it feels like we're dealing with something half alive and half conscious.
Here are twenty-one neologisms. Twenty-one quick brushstrokes that, if you hold them at arm's length like a '90s Magic Eye, resolve into a handful of key differences between human creativity and generative AI. Once you see them, it helps.
I won't tell you what they are yet. You can work them out as you go. I'll see you on the other side, with some answers.
