Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing AI and the future of dictionaries, with Erin McKean
Apr 17, 2025
Join Erin McKean, founder of Wordnik and Google open source enthusiast, as she delves into the evolving landscape of dictionaries amid AI's rise. Explore whether AI can truly replace lexicographers and uncover the environmental costs of training these systems. Erin also shares her journey from fashion blogging to lexicography, with insights on the significance of pockets in dresses and her favorite literary inspirations. This discussion beautifully weaves personal anecdotes with the future of language processing and community engagement.
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AI Mimics Language Without Understanding
- AI models imitate language using statistical patterns but lack true understanding of context and meaning.
- Lexicography requires nuanced human insight that current AI cannot reliably replicate.
Text Licensing Threatens Linguistic Research
- Licensing texts for AI training threatens access to essential data for lexicographers and computational linguists.
- Without affordable access to text, scientific progress in these fields could stall.
AI Text Blurs Linguistic Data
- It's difficult to distinguish text created by AI language models from human-written text online.
- This blurs data quality and complicates linguistic analyses for lexicographers.
