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.

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[–] 125 points 1 month ago (10 children)

Having to make a whole website to make a cringe-ass word happen is so fetch

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  • [–] 24 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    Urban Dictionary says: Fetch Stop trying to make it happen. It's not going to happen. "That's so fetch!" "Shut up, Gretchen. Stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen." Fetch by KamIsTotallyFuckingAwesome May 17, 2011 Word of the Day on March 30, 2019

    and also

    fetch slang for cool or awsome. Used in mean girls by Grechen Weener. Omg Kadi you love him. That is so fetch. Grechen stop trying to make "fetch" happen! It's not going to happen! fetch by Kayla February 8, 2005

    But from context I can tell you mean the first one :)

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Us older generation thank you.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago* (5 children)

    I understand not everyone has seen Mean Girls, but it's kind of funny that the film itself is ancient (22 years old I believe without looking it up)

    Edit: Just checked. Yep, it came out in 2004.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    22 years = ancient?

    Enlightenment is gonna hurt.

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  • [–] 51 points 1 month ago (12 children)
  • [+] [S] -6 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 47 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Yeah, I'm not using this.

    So hard to just say "no AI"

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago* (3 children)

    C'mon man. The cool kids haven't made a new word in like 2 weeks now, and they're itching to manufacture more distinguishing mannerisms and prove their edginess. So fetch; cro nap, slipwoosh.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago

    That's so stupid sounding. I'm not sure AI didn't write it.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago
    [–] 13 points 1 month ago

    Please stop

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    What's with the first z?

    Without it it sounds like "use AI"...

    Quite a dumb word.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago

    forced meme

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (1 child)
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    we have fuck tons of acronym and new words already

    plz stahp

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    It's quite annoying that it's a recursive acronym, and I would imagine will add confusion and hinder any wider spread adoption, or at the very least understanding of it

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 month ago

    We use lots of acronyms like regular words, it just takes a little time for them to become embedded in the language. Everyone knows what a LASER is, if not how it works or what the letters stand for. We check the weather RADAR, put in our PIN codes when checking out at the supermarket, and write out our addresses with ZIP codes. Eventually the acronyms just turn into regular words for most people.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    "An author doesn't use LLM" does take too many words. It's much faster to tell someone they use a "zuzai writing process" and then proceed to explain to them what that word means in the first place.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

    But to be real for a moment, I think a neologism that just means "no AI" is giving more power to the "AI industry".

    The website gives an example, the word vegan. It's as if someone who eats meat felt like it takes too many words to say "meat eaters" and made up a new word for it in opposition to veganism. If anything, they would be solidifying veganism.

    Note: yes, people say carnivore when talking about meat eaters. But that wasn't invented solely for this use and also it's not precise.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    “Carnist” is popular in online vegan spaces, though fortunately I’ve never heard an irl vegan use the term because to be honest it sounds silly and/or dirty when said aloud

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Huh, I haven't encountered it yet. The word makes me think of carnality, so yeah... I'm not gonna use it any time soon. Thanks, I'll know what people are talking about in the future. 🙂

    I think that's a little bit different though, that's vegans having a name for another group they're opposing. I find it similarly silly as zuzai though 😃

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago

    It’s as if someone who eats meat felt like it takes too many words to say “meat eaters” and made up a new word for it in opposition to veganism

    not quite - we needed a way to describe not eating any plants. Zero carb is correct but wordy, carnivore is succinct and descriptive. The problem is when people confuse omnivore and carnivore as the same thing (which is how most online debates tend to misuse the terms).

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    spam. slop. enshittification. we've had plenty of words enter everyday vocabulary. they all had to start somewhere (granted enshittification in particular is pretty easy to grasp without ever having seen it before).

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Slop is not a new word at all. Spam is a name for then new concept. Also both happened much more naturally (hey, or organically) Enshittification is one word that was pushed by one person and people fell in love with it for some reason.

    Look, invent new words. That's how languages work. Especially languages like English. But then don't complain that it's too many words or there are no words to say "AI free", because newly invented neologisms will always require more words in real conversations.

    I mentioned the real problem (as perceived by me) below. I didn't say we shouldn't add new words to our languages at all. Admittedly, zuzai specifically also just happens to sound terrible and silly.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago*

    Enshittification isn’t a new word, it was just found. We’ve had “shit” for a long time, then Cory added “en-“ to become, “-ify” to direct an agent of change, and “-tion” to nominalize. It’s understandable and works within the context of the language, by people who hear it even once. It’s conjugatable, “enshittified,” “disenshittify,” and everyone knows what this means by familiarity of the language.

    When I see “zuzai,” I see a Japanese i-adjective that I can’t get a meaning for. It’s just hanging out there and it makes me want to reach for a dictionary, but I’ll never find it, cause I don’t even have the right language to begin with.

    EDIT:

    Turns out it’s a noun, not even an i-adjective. Jail for slop peddlers though?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago
    [–] 0 points 1 month ago

    I think in line with Trump trying to rename things, artificial intelligence should be renamed by the rest of the world to “American intelligence”.

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