Merriam-Webster’s Word of the 12 months Reflects Growing Concerns Over AI’s Ability to Deceive

When Merriam-Webster announced that its word of the yr for 2023 was “authentic,” it did so with over a month to go within the calendar yr.

Even then, the dictionary publisher was late to the sport.

In a lexicographic type of Christmas creep, Collins English Dictionary announced its 2023 word of the yr, “AI,” on October 31. Cambridge University Press followed suit on November 15 with “hallucinate,” a word used to consult with incorrect or misleading information provided by generative AI programs.

At any rate, terms related to artificial intelligence appear to rule the roost, with “authentic” also falling under that umbrella.

AI and the Authenticity Crisis

For the past 20 years, Merriam-Webster, the oldest dictionary publisher within the US, has chosen a word of the yr—a term that encapsulates, in a single form or one other, the zeitgeist of that past yr. In 2020, the word was “pandemic.” The following yr’s winner? “Vaccine.”

“Authentic” is, at first glance, just a little less obvious.

In response to the publisher’s editor-at-large, Peter Sokolowski, 2023 represented “a type of crisis of authenticity.” He added that the alternative was also informed by the variety of online users who looked up the word’s meaning all year long.

The word “authentic,” within the sense of something that’s accurate or authoritative, has its roots in French and Latin. The Oxford English Dictionary has identified its usage in English as early because the late 14th century.

And yet the concept—particularly because it applies to human creations and human behavior—is slippery.

Is a photograph made out of film more authentic than one made out of a digital camera? Does an authentic scotch should be made at a small-batch distillery in Scotland? When socializing, are you being authentic—or simply plain rude—if you skirt niceties and small talk? Does being your authentic self mean pursuing something that feels natural, even on the expense of cultural or legal constraints?

The more you consider it, the more it looks like an ever-elusive ideal—one further complicated by advances in artificial intelligence.

How Much Human Touch?

Intelligence of the factitious variety—as in nonhuman, inauthentic, computer-generated intelligence—was the technology story of the past yr.

At the top of 2022, OpenAI publicly released ChatGPT, a chatbot derived from so-called large language models. It was widely seen as a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, but its rapid adoption led to questions on the accuracy of its answers.

The chatbot also became popular amongst students, which compelled teachers to grapple with the way to ensure their assignments weren’t being accomplished by ChatGPT.

Problems with authenticity have arisen in other areas as well. In November 2023, a track described because the “last Beatles song” was released. “Now and Then” is a compilation of music originally written and performed by John Lennon within the Nineteen Seventies, with additional music recorded by the opposite band members within the Nineteen Nineties. A machine learning algorithm was recently employed to separate Lennon’s vocals from his piano accompaniment, and this allowed a final version to be released.

But is it an authentic Beatles song? Not everyone seems to be convinced.

Advances in technology have also allowed the manipulation of audio and video recordings. Known as “deepfakes,” such transformations could make it appear that a star or a politician said something that they didn’t—a troubling prospect because the US heads into what is certain to be a contentious 2024 election season.

Writing for The Conversation in May 2023, education scholar Victor R. Lee explored the AI-fueled authenticity crisis.

Our judgments of authenticity are knee-jerk, he explained, honed over years of experience. Sure, occasionally we’re fooled, but our antennae are generally reliable. Generative AI short-circuits this cognitive framework.

“That’s because back when it took a variety of time to supply original recent content, there was a general assumption … that it only might have been made by expert individuals putting in a variety of effort and acting with the very best of intentions,” he wrote.

“These should not secure assumptions anymore,” he added. “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, everyone will need to contemplate that it could not have actually hatched from an egg.”

Though there appears to be a general understanding that human minds and human hands must play some role in creating something authentic or being authentic, authenticity has at all times been a difficult concept to define.

So it’s somewhat fitting that as our collective handle on reality has turn out to be ever more tenuous, an elusive word for an abstract ideal is Merriam-Webster’s word of the yr.