As we entered the third decade of the third millennium, many of the science and tech words and phrases in popular circulation had lost all meaning. “AI”, “machine learning” and their newer synonym, “cognitive technology”, for example, had joined the pantheon of synonyms for “snake oil“. Or at least they were becoming placeholders for anything any company wanted you to believe.
And oh, the word salads that have been mixed from data and oil!
The word salads got more complex as data variously became the new nuclear power, gold, currency and poop (unfortunately, I also indulged in the metaphor). Simultaneously, other things vied for the title of new oil. Intellectual property was the new oil. Tourism (which, in a new twist, was dubbed the new “white oil”). Even sand got involved.
Now, in a rare confluence, it appears the very latest oil may be tourism in sandy places. “I call it the new golden oil,” a Saudi Arabian executive told the New York Times of the desert scenes his country is hoping to sell to travel agencies.
It’s time to draw a line in the golden oil. Please can we agree, in the 2020s, that things are just themselves and nothing is the new oil? This metaphor is not the only thing that has to go. Some other words became so stale in the 2010s that I and LWON – and several anonymous cowards who contributed to the list but chose to keep their identities veiled – voted on the worst offenders to collectively jettison in the new century.
Data/new oil. (as above)
Facial recognition. Nobody has a problem saying “fingerprint scanner”. People happily refer to “iris recognition”. We talk uncontroversially about “gait recognition.” No problem! So what fucking maniac started talking about facial recognition?
What if I started writing news stories about gatial recognition and fingerprintial scanners? Just say face recognition. I see a face. I recognise a face. I am doing face recognition. See how easy that is? Why are you trying to be fancy?
Compute (used as a noun). I’m happy for people to continue computing things. But “compute” used as a noun to mean processing power [“the amount of compute has been increasing exponentially“] has really just become a way to show the size of your tech dick.
AI. “It means too many things and usually not at all what the person is saying. It’s a useful catchall in some cases. Otherwise it hides the nature of what you’re actually taking about. And what you’re actually talking about is often just a good old fashioned piece of code,” says my unnamed contributor.
Much of the AI hype is driven by people applying the term to things that don’t need it. But it’s sexy. Or it was, before everyone started calling everything AI.” Similarly, “algorithm”: Algorithms do this, algorithms do that, making them the prime agent of bad things happening, as if there were no people involved.
Toxin. The AI of woo. Christie says the word is almost universally misused (the word means “an antigenic poison or venom of plant or animal origin” — not some made up thing for your woo product to flush out of your body!).
“the space” (as used in PR emails). “John Doe is an expert in the tech space and can speak to the increasing popularity of facial recognition” or somesuch. Please find another way to describe your field or industry. Do not use “the space”.
Crypto (to mean cryptocurrencies) Crypto means cryptography. Cryptography was first, it’s grandfathered in, it has seniority. Get your own abbreviation, coin people. Call them coins. Call them cryptocurrencies. Actually, Alexandru Voica wants that one gone too, so let’s just call them digital currency and leave crypto out of this.
File under Niche Concerns: Theoretician
“Physicists and astronomers use “theoretician” when they’re too young/too insecure/too pompous to know that “theorist” means exactly the same thing with fewer syllables,” says Ann.
It’s probably too much to expect people to stop using these terms just because they grind my gears. But if some enterprising LWON reader wanted to weaponise an MRI machine for me to carve out the areas of the brain responsible for forming these concepts, I wouldn’t say no. Call it a Sapir-Whorf attack – if you can’t think it, you can’t annoy me by saying it. I think it’s a totally proportionate response and not at all unhinged. Happy 2020!
As someone who works at the confluence of earth research and computer technology, I wholeheartedly agree about “compute” and “AI”. “Compute” is not a noun. Ever. And anytime someone mentions “AI”, I feel compelled to pepper them with questions just to determine what they are *actually* referring to. I feel like you could replace “AI” in any sentence with “miscellaneous software” and the meaning would barely change.
Oh, and I would like to add “fake news” to the pantheon of phrases to discard. We already have a nice brief word for this: lie.
I like your test, Dr. D. As for fake news, we talked about that phrase, but it’s a trap! Trying to write about it drew me down a 9000-word rabbit hole every time, and I would rather leave that task to the thousand or so PhD candidates currently doing it much better than I ever could.