Collins Dictionary Word of the Year 2023: Unveiling the Term Shaping Cultural Discourse

• Collins Dictionary Word of the Year 2023 Award: The declaration was made by lexicographers at Collins Dictionary, after they observed a significant increase in the usage of this term.
• Choosing the Word: The word was chosen after analyzing the Collins Corpus, a database containing over 20 billion words from written materials, including websites, newspapers, magazines, and books published worldwide. 
  • It also considered spoken language from radio, TV, and everyday conversations.
• Other Noteworthy Words:
  • Nepo Baby: A phrase that is used to describe children of celebrities who have succeeded in industries similar to those of their parents.
  • Greedflation: It refers to companies making profits during the cost of living crisis.
  • Permacrisis: It refers to an extended period of instability and insecurity, which was the Collins Word of the Year in 2022.
  • Deinfluencing: It is an act of warning social media followers to avoid certain products or lifestyle choices.

What is Artificial Intelligence? – Collins Dictionary Word of the Year

• Artificial Intelligence is a segment of Computer Science that has the potential to perform tasks commonly associated with human cognitive functions. It allows computers to learn and solve problems like humans.
  • These functions include interpreting speech, playing games, identifying patterns, generating arts etc.
• Transformative Applications of AI: Revolutionizing Industries and Enhancing Lives
  • Healthcare: Artificial Intelligence can help provide personalized medicine and X-ray readings. It can analyze reports in a better way and make accurate diagnoses.
  • Robotics: Artificial Intelligence can help robots learn the processes and perform the tasks with complete autonomy, without any human intervention.
  • Transport: Driverless vehicles have been developed as a part of Artificial Intelligence (AI). 
  • Banking and finance: Artificial Intelligence bots, digital payment advisers and biometric fraud detection are some of the applications of AI in banking and finance.
  • Security: AI facial recognition tools may be used for surveillance and security purposes to identify criminals.
  • Agriculture: Artificial Intelligence can analyze the crop health by looking at images of crops and suggesting appropriate amounts of fertilizers and water. It can also predict yields.
  • E-commerce and social media: AI can provide personalized content to users based on their previous usage pattern. Apart from targeted sales, AI also helps in targeted advertising.
  • Education: Artificial Intelligence can be used to develop educational content, which could convey knowledge in an effective way.

Challenges and Risks of AI: Navigating Security, Ethics, and Socio-Economic Implications

• Security Threats: Artificial Intelligence can be used to assist criminals in launching cyberattacks or help terrorists in planning chemical attacks.
• Environmental Concerns: To operate Artificial Intelligence, it needs a lot of electricity. Going by the numbers, excessive use of Artificial Intelligence can lead to increase in global warming as well as carbon footprint.
• Loss of Jobs: Artificial Intelligence has the potential to replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs across the globe in the near future.
• Data Privacy: Artificial Intelligence systems need access to large amounts of data sets to train effectively. This raises concerns about data privacy and potential misuse of the same. 
• Data Poisoning: It refers to inaccurate or biased outcomes based on input data manipulation. Criminals can insert malicious data into an Artificial Intelligence system’s training to compromise its performance. 
• Ethical Concerns: AI can lead to decisions that are susceptible to inaccuracies, discriminatory outcomes, embedded or inserted bias.

Diverse Linguistic Trends: Exploring the Vocabulary of the Year Across Dictionaries

• Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year:
  • The Oxford English Dictionary has chosen ‘Goblin mode’ as the word of the year 2022.
  • According to the dictionary, “goblin mode”, is a slang term for “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy” behavior.
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary Word of the Year:
  • ‘Gaslighting’ has been chosen by Merriam-Webster dictionary as the word of the year for 2022.
  • The dictionary defines ‘gaslighting’ as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.”
• Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year:
  • “Homer” was chosen by the Cambridge Dictionary as the word of the year for 2022. It was inspired by Wordle.
  • “Homer ” is not a reference to the Greek poet and author, or a character from Simpson, but refers to an informal American English word for a ‘home run’ in baseball.

Conclusion:

Choosing the word AI as the Word of the Year for 2023 by Collins Dictionary reflects the profound impact of artificial intelligence on our rapidly evolving world.