this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
221 points (99.6% liked)

Technology

2619 readers
33 users here now

Tech related news and discussion. Link to anything, it doesn't need to be a news article.

Let's keep the politics and business side of things to a minimum.

Rules

No memes

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

Renaming a thing because of a new thing has been a part of the evolution of language forever.

With specific regard to "artificial" and your example...Just yesterday I saw the title of an article about Football FIelds: Grass vs Turf. So apparently the artificial kind is now just "turf." Luckily we already had "grass" as a synonym for actual turf. Although in some contexts we need to specify "actual grass" as opposed to cannabis.

Usually when an artificial item comes along, the original item is then described as "real." Real flowers, real vanilla, real diamond (a misnomer but still) real breasts, real Christmas tree...

But of course in this case they're looking for the initials to be A.I.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym