AI glossary

AI safety is a field of research concerned with how AI can be developed and used safely and ethically. Topics discussed by AI safety researchers include alignment, bias, the effects of automation, hallucination, and the use of generative AI to create deepfakes and misinformation.

An AI detector is a tool designed to detect when a piece of text (or sometimes an image or video) has been created by AI tools (such as ChatGPT and DALL-E). These detectors are not 100% reliable, but they can indicate the likelihood that a text was generated by AI. AI detectors work with similar large language models (LLMs) as the tools they try to detect. Essentially, these models look at a text (or image or video) and ask: “Is this something I would have generated?”. They look for low levels of two criteria: perplexity and burstiness. AI detectors can be used by universities and other institutions to identify AI-generated content.

AI-writing is a general term for the use of AI (usually LLMs) to generate or modify text. It includes chatbots like ChatGPT.

An algorithm is a finite set of rules that a computer system follows to perform a specific task. It is a type of program that stops at a given point and does not work indefinitely. An algorithm can be, for example, a series of mathematical steps to calculate a certain variable. They can also be designed for more complex tasks, such as deciding which content should be promoted on someone's "for you" page on social media.

AlphaGo is an AI program designed to play the popular board game Go. The game is known for its high level of complexity, which made it challenging for earlier computer systems to play well. In 2017, AlphaGo defeated the world's best Go player, Ke Jie, just as Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in chess in 1997.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics, motivations, intentions, and emotions to non-human entities. People tend to anthropomorphize various things, from animals to the weather. We also increasingly anthropomorphize technology, particularly AI that appears to exhibit human intelligence. For example, people often emotionally attach to chatbots or believe that a hallucinating chatbot is intentionally lying to them. They may refer to AI systems or robots with gender designations, attributing human traits they do not actually possess.

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) refers to a hypothetical future AI system whose intelligence matches or surpasses human intelligence for all intellectual tasks. Many AI researchers believe that AI will likely reach this point and surpass human intelligence sometime this century due to the acceleration of machine learning. This scenario is often discussed in the context of alignment and AI safety: as AI becomes more intelligent than humans, it is essential that it continues to work towards our goals and does not endanger humans.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is human or animal intelligence exhibited by machines. An example is the ability to perceive, understand, and reason about the world in the same way humans do. In practice, AI is used for a wide range of applications. AI technology is used in natural language processing (NLP) chatbots, autonomous (self-driving) vehicles, search engines, and in gaming bots like AlphaGo and Deep Blue.

Automation involves a process or system operating automatically and independently, without human input. Automation can reduce the amount of human labor in a process or make certain types of human labor completely redundant. Since the industrial revolution, increasingly more types of work have been automated. This has led to a massive increase in efficiency but also to the disruption of the professions involved, which can lead to unemployment. AI tools can be seen as a way to automate the writing process. They may lead to the disruption of certain areas, such as education and administrative work.

The adjective "autonomous”, means: "operating without external control". In the world of AI, it is often used to refer to systems, robots, software, etc., that can operate independently, without direct human input.