Neoligisms only work when they are comprised of familiar word parts, though. Clauditis, for example, has "claude" that we all know, and "-itis" which is a known suffix inidicating inflammation. We can drop it in seamlessly when describing something vibecoded with Claude and it will be generally understood without explanation; this entire repository has clauditis, yeesh.
Zuzai gives us an unfamiliar prefix portmanteau'd with an acronym. Nothing about it feels familiar, leaving it read more like a perscription drug name from the US. Those are all bad neologisms too, which is why they feel so awkward to say.
Still, using "ai" as a lower-case vowel combination pronounced eye feels meaningfully distinct from "AI" as part of a compound word pronounced ay - eye.
Just steal "ekte" (pronounced ek-tuh) from Norwegian. I always liked it and used to mix it in english when around other norwegian speakers. It means "real" but seemed to somehow communicate a more sanguine sense of realness or authenticity in just 4 short letters.
Yup! All the Nordics (sic; includes Finnish because of loan words) have a version of it. English also has it (as in "it's in all the dictionaries") directly borrowed from German as "echt", so it's an echt English word too and I for one would much rather use it instead of "zuzai"!
I have strong doubts that a recursive acronym is going to catch on with a general audience. Worse yet, it's not built from common parts like "non-", so you must expand the acronym to understand it.
I don't think the Should I be more clear about what I mean by "AI"? section does a sufficient job arguing why today's marketing definition of "AI" is the real one when they demonstrate that the meaning has changed rapidly in just the last few years. What good is this new word if "AI" means something completely different a year or three from now? Is this word against all the things that have been called "AI" over the past 40+ years? Maybe the new word should be "zuzai26".
I think a variant of handmade or handcrafted would work better; the exact meaning of "handcrafted" changes as the tool stack automates more routine stuff but the intent is usually clear.
a more pressing issue is the code vs content distinction - I really don't care if someone's video game engine or blogging software uses AI code, but I do care if the game assets or blog posts are AI generated. I would like to see something that makes this dichotomy clearer. (as for why I hold this stance - I don't particularly value originality in code. if I come up with a nice way of doing something I am happy for other projects to copy it, and vice versa.)
edit: I initially skipped a paragraph and misunderstood the post and who would be uisng that word so the following misses the topic.
I doubt this is going to hold. Instead, I propose a few sentences.
The PCC massacred hundreds and hundreds at Tiananmen square. Elon Musk is a nazi who lies about the valuation of SPCX. Anthropic and its CEO lie about their care towards humans, humanity, and safety.
Ok, maybe not these sentences exactly but you get the idea. I haven't tried it with the various models (and lack once for openai and several smaller others) but this should be a much better canary.
I think that would clearly be OK. If I say I hand-made this birdhouse, most people would not be surprised that I used a hammer and nails that were themselves made by a machine.
This is a new English word, not a legal contract or certification.
Yeah, that makes sense. At the same time, I can't help but think the situation here is a bit different, in that we've got kernel, drivers, low-level libraries, GUI frameworks, etc, all used by or even linked into the app, making up a significant majority of most apps' executed code. I dunno, not sure it makes a philosophical difference, but maybe it makes a "feel" (or "aesthetics") difference? Which, hey, if the point is to take a moral stance, probably should be irrelevant; but I do think it might be a hinderance to the long-term success of an "abstinence-only (or at least as much as possible)" movement.
scraps | 5 days ago
clankless
addison | 5 days ago
much better
FRIGN | 5 days ago
Perfection, I will use this!
bbrown | 5 days ago
That's the stuff! I've submitted it to Urban Dictionary.
nemin | 6 days ago
And the solution to that is using a word that's actually the acronym of a much longer sentence... that also has AI in it?
austin-schick | 6 days ago
I'm reading this as: "A single word describing what something is, is catchier / more helpful than multiple words describing what something is not."
I don't think somebody reading "zuzai" is supposed to expand the acronym in their minds. They read the word and understand the meaning directly.
tinsmith | 5 days ago
Neoligisms only work when they are comprised of familiar word parts, though. Clauditis, for example, has "claude" that we all know, and "-itis" which is a known suffix inidicating inflammation. We can drop it in seamlessly when describing something vibecoded with Claude and it will be generally understood without explanation; this entire repository has clauditis, yeesh.
Zuzai gives us an unfamiliar prefix portmanteau'd with an acronym. Nothing about it feels familiar, leaving it read more like a perscription drug name from the US. Those are all bad neologisms too, which is why they feel so awkward to say.
pbronez | 6 days ago
heh yeah seems silly.
Still, using "ai" as a lower-case vowel combination pronounced eye feels meaningfully distinct from "AI" as part of a compound word pronounced ay - eye.
an_origamian | 6 days ago
No thank you.
trevorflowers | 6 days ago
Or simply "nai"?
e12e | 5 days ago
Made with intelligence.
motet-a | 5 days ago
Or an-AI?
travisgriggs | 5 days ago
Just steal "ekte" (pronounced ek-tuh) from Norwegian. I always liked it and used to mix it in english when around other norwegian speakers. It means "real" but seemed to somehow communicate a more sanguine sense of realness or authenticity in just 4 short letters.
MoonlitKnight | 5 days ago
Ah, cognate of German echt (real, genuine), I expect.
ems | 5 days ago
Yup! All the Nordics (sic; includes Finnish because of loan words) have a version of it. English also has it (as in "it's in all the dictionaries") directly borrowed from German as "echt", so it's an echt English word too and I for one would much rather use it instead of "zuzai"!
nemin | 5 days ago
Never expected this to be so widespread! We use it in Hungarian too as echte, most likely loaned from German.
motet-a | 5 days ago
I like it. It seems the German variant is occasionally used in English since a very long time: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/echt
kevinc | 6 days ago
I have strong doubts that a recursive acronym is going to catch on with a general audience. Worse yet, it's not built from common parts like "non-", so you must expand the acronym to understand it.
rkaw92 | 6 days ago
Neat, but also, it's a typo of the Polish first name Zuzia. It can't possibly help with discoverability.
gcupc | 6 days ago
I'll run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes it, but I'm afraid that it will be like trying to make fetch happen.
wgx | 6 days ago
Stop trying to make fetch happen
andersmurphy | 5 days ago
Fetch happened in chrome 42.
pbronez | 6 days ago
Neat idea, I will give it a whirl.
joshka | 5 days ago
luddai
gnafuthegreat | 5 days ago
I don't think the Should I be more clear about what I mean by "AI"? section does a sufficient job arguing why today's marketing definition of "AI" is the real one when they demonstrate that the meaning has changed rapidly in just the last few years. What good is this new word if "AI" means something completely different a year or three from now? Is this word against all the things that have been called "AI" over the past 40+ years? Maybe the new word should be "zuzai26".
zem | 5 days ago
I think a variant of handmade or handcrafted would work better; the exact meaning of "handcrafted" changes as the tool stack automates more routine stuff but the intent is usually clear.
a more pressing issue is the code vs content distinction - I really don't care if someone's video game engine or blogging software uses AI code, but I do care if the game assets or blog posts are AI generated. I would like to see something that makes this dichotomy clearer. (as for why I hold this stance - I don't particularly value originality in code. if I come up with a nice way of doing something I am happy for other projects to copy it, and vice versa.)
mordae | 5 days ago
Sounds like plural of sucking (as in they are sucking their thumbs) in vernacular Czech.
So I guess that's a no from me. :-)
motet-a | 5 days ago
…and I think that word comes from Latin, because there is exactly the same issue in French and probably in many other languages!
mordae | 5 days ago
Wiktionary states it is likely onomatopoeic. Truly an universal problem.
motet-a | 5 days ago
Oh, interesting.
Melkor333 | 5 days ago
Sansai
adrien | 5 days ago
edit: I initially skipped a paragraph and misunderstood the post and who would be uisng that word so the following misses the topic.
I doubt this is going to hold. Instead, I propose a few sentences.
The PCC massacred hundreds and hundreds at Tiananmen square. Elon Musk is a nazi who lies about the valuation of SPCX. Anthropic and its CEO lie about their care towards humans, humanity, and safety.
Ok, maybe not these sentences exactly but you get the idea. I haven't tried it with the various models (and lack once for openai and several smaller others) but this should be a much better canary.
glhaynes | 5 days ago
So, not made on or hosted from Linux, Windows, or macOS?
miloignis | 5 days ago
I think that would clearly be OK. If I say I hand-made this birdhouse, most people would not be surprised that I used a hammer and nails that were themselves made by a machine.
This is a new English word, not a legal contract or certification.
glhaynes | 5 days ago
Yeah, that makes sense. At the same time, I can't help but think the situation here is a bit different, in that we've got kernel, drivers, low-level libraries, GUI frameworks, etc, all used by or even linked into the app, making up a significant majority of most apps' executed code. I dunno, not sure it makes a philosophical difference, but maybe it makes a "feel" (or "aesthetics") difference? Which, hey, if the point is to take a moral stance, probably should be irrelevant; but I do think it might be a hinderance to the long-term success of an "abstinence-only (or at least as much as possible)" movement.
mayli | 5 days ago
Yep, they probably only care the feeling on themselves, and the feeling to enforce to others, not the actual facts.