I had seen the #zuzai tag on mastodon a few times and had no idea what it was, but discovered a whole site dedicated to the new word. It’s pronounced like “zoo’s eye.” You might say an author uses a zuzai writing process, or a teacher requires a zuzai testing environment. Is it a little pretentious to set up a whole website to justify the weird, new retronym you just came up with in a fit of ennui? Maybe. But I like zuzai, it encapsulates something that currently takes a lot of words to otherwise explain, and I hope it worms its way into the public zeitgeist.
What’s wrong with “no AI”?
“AI-free” is also apparently too many words
Noai. This program/poster/image is noai. Easy.
It takes too many words to say that. /sarcasm
That won’t get you a book deal like a “new word” will. The author thinks this will make him the next Cory Doctorow.
We have too many of those already…
And most of the internet seems to be UZI
Using Zero Intelligence
Or other alternatives like “organic”.
Artisinal /joking
Edit: direct quote from article
not sure why this is getting downvoted, it’s an actual quote from the site.
It’s getting downvoted because it’s answering the question with another question. They might as well have just replied with the 🤷 emoji, for how useful of an answer it is.
Since we’ve obviously all read the article before commenting, I thought I’d post a short snippet as a reminder that the author has considered the question.
Oh good, I’m glad the author considered the question.
Tell me when he answers it.
I mean, you could read the thing.
I did. He literally does not answer the question. He “considers” it, as you said, and then moves on. Here’s the context of the quote you posted earlier:
He asks a question, then says “I hope the point is clear” without saying what the point is, and then asks another question. He then naively follows-up that nonsense with:
Those entered the lexicon because they’re fucking words. They are sounds and arrangements of letters tied to concepts that we know and understand. You don’t have to read an entire website to understand what “enshittification” means, as it’s made up of words you already know. “zuzai” has no such connection because some guy just made it up. That’s precisely why “no AI” and “AI-free” are the better options, because it uses words you already know.
At this point, I question whether or not you’ve read the thing. Because I don’t understand how anybody can read this and think “Yeah this is a good idea” instead of “This is just a bunch of attention-seeking nonsense to boost his LinkedIn following for when he announces his upcoming book”.
I don’t know and we will never know. But the word is just appropriated. They didn’t invent a new word. They could have just as well used the word natural for the marketing. Both words are similarly meaningless.
It’s about framing. By saying “no AI” you’re acknowledging that the default selection is “AI”. By making a word for it you’re putting both concepts back on equal footing. That’s how I think about it at least.
Making a word for it is stronger reinforcement that everyone is treating ai as the default.
unfortunately this is true of <20s from what I’ve heard
But they’re inherently not equal concepts.