Why dictionary.com’s word of the year is “hallucinate”

Whereas most individuals would possibly consider hallucinating as one thing that afflicts the human mind, Dictionary.com truly had synthetic intelligence in thoughts when it picked “hallucinate” as its phrase of the 12 months. 

“Hallucinate” has entered the mainstream not too long ago as a consequence of its hyperlink to the booming new expertise behind apps like ChatGPT. The definition, on the subject of AI, means: “to supply false data opposite to the intent of the consumer and current it as if true and factual.” Dictionary.com added the definition this 12 months. 

“Hallucinate as our 2023 Phrase of the Yr encapsulates expertise’s persevering with influence on social change, and the continued discrepancy between the right future we envision and the messy one we truly obtain,” Grant Barrett, dictionary.com’s lexicography head, mentioned. 

Why did dictionary.com decide “hallucinate” as its phrase of the 12 months?

There was a forty five% enhance in dictionary lookups for “hallucinate” when in comparison with final 12 months, in line with the positioning. There was the same enhance in searches for the noun kind “hallucination.” General, there was a 62% year-over-year spike in dictionary lookups for AI-related phrases. 

“Our selection of hallucinate because the 2023 Phrase of the Yr represents our assured projection that AI will show to be one of the crucial consequential developments of our lifetime,” Barrett and Nick Norlen, dictionary.com’s senior editor, mentioned in a publish. “Information and lexicographical concerns apart, hallucinate appears becoming for a time in historical past by which new applied sciences can really feel just like the stuff of goals or fiction—particularly once they produce fictions of their very own.”

Hallucinations are a standard drawback with AI, Google CEO Sundar Pichai advised 60 Minutes earlier this 12 months.

“Nobody within the discipline has but solved the hallucination issues,” Pichai mentioned. “All fashions do have this as a problem.”

The place did the phrase “hallucinate” come from?

Hallucinate derives from the Latin phrase ālūcinārī, that means “to dream” or “to wander mentally,” in line with dictionary.com senior editor of lexicography Kory Stamper.

One of many first documented makes use of of the phrase hallucination in laptop science dates again to a 1971 analysis paper, in line with dictionary.com. The paper was about coaching computer systems to precisely “learn” handwriting and output it. Hallucination and hallucinate started to appear within the context of machine studying and AI within the Nineties.

What different phrases did dictionary.com take into account for phrase of the 12 months?

Occasions from the 12 months, together with outstanding and prolonged strikes, Canadian wildfires and noteworthy indictments, drove dictionary.com searches. The location had “strike,” “wokeism,” “indicted” and “wildfire” on its shortlist. It additionally thought-about “rizz,” which was chosen by the Oxford College Press as its phrase of the 12 months. 

AI additionally influenced Merriam-Webster’s phrase of the 12 months for 2023, “genuine.” In line with Merriam-Webster, tales about AI and social media drove folks to lookup “genuine,” which it defines as: “not false or imitation” and “true to 1’s personal character, spirit, or character” and a synonym of “actual” and “precise.”