• Consequence

A result of a particular action or situation, often one that is bad or not

convenient
Sam Altman stresses need to guard against negative consequences of
technology, as company releases new version GPT-4.
• Artificial
Made by people, often as a copy of something natural
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company that developed the
controversial consumer-facing artificial intelligence application ChatGPT,
has warned that the technology comes with real dangers as it reshapes
society.
• Application
An official request for something, usually in writing
The warning came as OpenAI released the latest version of its language AI
model, GPT-4, less than four months since the original version was
released and became the fastest-growing consumer application in history.
• Although
Despite the fact that
In the interview, the artificial intelligence engineer said that although the
new version was “not perfect” it had scored 90% in the US on the bar
exams and a near-perfect score on the high school SAT math test.
• Consumer
A person who buys goods or services for their own use
Fears over consumer-facing artificial intelligence, and artificial
intelligence in general, focus on humans being replaced by machines.
• Input
Something such as energy, money, or information that is put into a
system, organization, or machine so that it can operate
But Altman pointed out that AI only works under direction, or input,
from humans.
• To handle
To deal with, have responsibility for, or be in charge of
Society, I think, has a limited amount of time to figure out how to react to
that, how to regulate that, how to handle it.
• Encounter
A meeting, especially one that happens by chance
Many users of ChatGPT have encountered a machine with responses that
are defensive to the point of paranoid.
• To conjure up
To make a picture or idea appear in someone's mind
In tests offered to the TV news outlet, GPT-4 performed a test in which it
conjured up recipes from the contents of a fridge.
• Repeatedly
Many times
The Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, one of the first investors in OpenAI when it
was still a non-profit company, has repeatedly issued warnings that AI or
 AGI – artificial general intelligence – is more dangerous than a nuclear
weapon.
• To disband
To stop being a group
Musk voiced concern that Microsoft, which hosts ChatGPT on its Bing
search engine, had disbanded its ethics oversight division.
• To fret
To be nervous or worried
This week, Musk fretted, also on Twitter, which he owns: “What will be
left for us humans to do?”
• Bizarre
Very strange and unusual
On Thursday, Altman acknowledged that the latest version uses deductive
reasoning rather than memorization, a process that can lead to bizarre
responses.
• Caution
Great care and attention
“The thing that I try to caution people the most is what we call the
‘hallucinations problem’,” Altman said. “The model will confidently state
things as if they were facts that are entirely made up.”
• To participate
To take part in or become involved in an activity
We deserve better from the tools we use, the media we consume and the
communities we live within, and we will only get what we deserve when we
are capable of participating in them fully.
• Uncannily
In a way that is uncanny or strange and mysterious
The software would produce an almost uncannily good interpretation of
their suggestion, worthy of a jobbing illustrator or Adobe-proficient
designer – but much faster, and for free.
• Reminiscent
Making you remember a particular person, event, or thing
Typing in, for example, “a pig with wings flying over the moon, illustrated
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry” resulted, after a minute or two of processing,
in something reminiscent of the patchy but recognisable watercolour
brushes of the creator of The Little Prince.
• Exuberant
Very energetic (especially of people and their behaviour)
Social media was flooded with all sorts of bizarre and wondrous creations,
an exuberant hodgepodge of fantasies and artistic styles.
• Hodgepodge
A confused mixture of different things
Social media was flooded with all sorts of bizarre and wondrous creations,
an exuberant hodgepodge of fantasies and artistic styles.
• To attempt
To try to do something, especially something difficult
 Ask ChatGPT to produce a summary of the Book of Job in the style of the
poet Allen Ginsberg and it would come up with a reasonable attempt in a
few seconds.
• To conjure
To make something appear by magic, or as if by magic
The abilities of these programs to conjure up strange new worlds in words
and pictures alike entranced the public, and the desire to have a go oneself
produced a growing literature on the ins and outs of making the best use of
these tools, and particularly how to structure inputs to get the most
interesting outcomes.
• To remunerate
To pay someone for work or services
Tech commentators were quick to predict that prompt engineering would
become a sought-after and well remunerated job description in a “no code”
future, where the most powerful way of interacting with intelligent
systems would be through the medium of human language.
• To prompt
To make something happen
Tech commentators were quick to predict that prompt engineering would
become a sought-after and well remunerated job description in a “no code”
future, where the most powerful way of interacting with intelligent
systems would be through the medium of human language.
• Harvesting
The activity of picking and collecting crops, or of collecting plants,
animals, or fish to eat
The big tech companies have spent 20 years harvesting vast amounts of
data from culture and everyday life, and building vast, energy-hungry data
centres filled with ever more powerful computers to churn through it.
• Assembly
A group of people, especially one that meets regularly for a particular
purpose, such as government, or, more generally, the process of coming
together, or the state of being together
AI image generation relies on the assembly and analysis of millions upon
millions of tagged images; that is, images that come with some kind of
description of their content already attached.
• To restrict
To limit the movements or actions of someone, or to limit something and
reduce its size or prevent it from increasing
The photographs were taken as part of her clinical documentation, and she
signed documents that restricted their use to her medical file alone.
• Nebulous
Not clear and having no form (especially of ideas)
Public or private, legal or otherwise, most of the text and images scraped up
by these systems exist in the nebulous domain of “fair use” (permitted in
the US, but questionable if not outright illegal in the EU).
• Labour
 Practical work, especially when it involves hard physical effort
AI image and text generation is pure primitive accumulation:
expropriation of labour from the many for the enrichment and
advancement of a few Silicon Valley technology companies and their
billionaire owners.
• Inherently
In a way that exists as a natural or basic part of something
We can’t peer inside its decision-making processes because the way these
neural networks “think” is inherently inhuman.
• To sink
To (cause something or someone to) go down below the surface or to the
bottom of a liquid or soft substance
All of the images depicted a creepy-looking woman with sunken eyes and
reddened cheeks, who the artist christened Loab.
• Prejudice
An unfair and unreasonable opinion or feeling, especially when formed
without enough thought or knowledge
They will reproduce the biases and prejudices of those who create them,
like the webcams that only recognise white faces, or the predictive policing
systems that lay siege to low-income neighbourhoods.
• Persuasive
Making you want to do or believe a particular thing
AI is now engaging with the underlying experience of feeling, emotion
and mood, and this will allow it to shape and influence the world at ever
deeper and more persuasive levels.
• Conceivable
Possible to imagine or to believe
But despite the online (and journalistic) rush to consult ChatGPT on
almost every conceivable problem, its relationship to knowledge itself is
somewhat shaky.
• To disseminate
To spread or give out something, especially news, information, ideas, etc.,
to a lot of people
Moreover, there has never been a time when our ability as individuals to
research and critically evaluate knowledge on our own behalf has been
more necessary, not least because of the damage that technology
companies have already done to the ways in which information is
disseminated.
• To revitalize
To give new life, energy, activity, or success to something
There was a cash prize for whoever submitted the most sentences – one
activist, Te Mihinga Komene, recorded 4,000 phrases alone – but the
organisers found that the greatest motivation for contributors was the
shared vision of revitalizing the language while keeping it in the
community’s ownership.
• Indigenous
 Used to refer to, or relating to, the people who originally lived in a place,
rather than people who moved there from somewhere else
Te Hiku Media’s achievement cleared a path for other indigenous groups to
follow, with similar projects now being undertaken by Mohawk peoples in
south-eastern Canada and Native Hawaiians.
• Virtue
Agood moral quality in a person, or the general quality of being morally
good
If your view of the world is one in which profit maximisation is the king of
virtues, and all things shall be held to the standard of shareholder value,
then of course your artistic, imaginative, aesthetic and emotional
expressions will be woefully impoverished.