What abbreviations leave out

Noh Myung-woo
The author is a professor of the Division of Economics, Politics and Society at Ajou University.

New expressions appear constantly, coming and going so quickly that keeping up can be dizzying. To those who believe that language should be carefully tested and refined before describing reality, neologisms may seem frivolous. Others believe that knowing the latest expressions is essential to keeping pace with the times.

Rather than simply liking or disliking new words, I am interested in what they reveal about changes in society. Two expressions I recently encountered, “young-keukeu” and “old-keukeu,” intrigued me as glimpses into contemporary attitudes. These compressed Korean expressions juxtapose youth and old age with “keukeu,” a written representation of laughter, though their precise connotation depends on context.

Sometimes unfamiliar words themselves confuse us. Often, however, their abbreviations are what leave us guessing. How could I possibly know that “pihyeop” is shorthand for “piano concerto” in Korean?

For generations accustomed to communicating through text, abbreviations offer an economical way to convey meaning. In Korean, “piano concerto” takes six written syllable blocks, but “pihyeop” takes just two. Saving 67 percent of the characters while preserving the intended meaning seems remarkably efficient. For those unfamiliar with the shorthand, however, that efficiency can disappear.

Abbreviations can also create the illusion of understanding. Almost everyone recognizes ChatGPT. Ask what GPT stands for, however, and most people cannot answer. Familiar with the abbreviation but not its original meaning, they imagine GPT as an all-purpose assistant that effortlessly completes unwanted tasks and instantly answers questions like an expert.

GPT stands for “generative pretrained transformer,” referring to a type of language model trained on vast amounts of text to predict what comes next. But in popular imagination, GPT has become virtually synonymous with omniscience, regardless of what its name actually means. Its underlying principles remain obscure to many users, despite its increasingly prominent role in everyday life and work.

The same applies to AI. The abbreviation is familiar, but recognizing a word and understanding its meaning are different. To examine the concept rather than accept the impression conveyed by those two letters, we must restore the words behind them.

AI stands for “artificial intelligence.” In Korean, the full term is ingong jineung, literally “artificial intelligence,” a compound of two distinct concepts. Consider them separately. The exercise may seem unnecessarily literal, but the familiar shorthand makes it easy to overlook the questions contained in the full name.

“Artificial” is generally understood in contrast to “natural.” Mountains and rivers are not human creations, so we call them natural. A bridge crossing a river, by contrast, is built by people and therefore artificial. The term’s nuances are not entirely straightforward, but its meaning becomes clearer when placed alongside nature.

“Intelligence” is more complicated. We are familiar with intelligence tests and so assume that we know what human intelligence means. But the word can carry either positive or negative associations. Whenever I write out the Korean term for artificial intelligence rather than abbreviating it as AI, another Korean expression comes to mind: jineungbeom, literally an “intelligent criminal,” meaning someone who commits sophisticated, calculated crimes.

Intelligence has two faces. One is the ability to understand and solve problems. We admire people who use their intellectual abilities to untangle complex questions. The other face is cunning. In jineungbeom, intelligence describes the capacity to deceive others and exploit vulnerabilities.

These are not necessarily different abilities. The same capacity may deserve praise or provoke alarm depending on its purpose. Intelligence itself is neither good nor evil. Its moral character depends on what it is used for and whose interests it serves.

When artificial intelligence is shortened to AI, this ambiguity disappears. The neat two-letter abbreviation presents only the face of a brilliant problem solver, leaving little room to consider intelligence’s darker possibilities.

Writing out “artificial intelligence” encourages us to ask different questions: What purposes does this intelligence serve? Who benefits from it? Could the same technology that helps some people inflict devastating harm on others?

Whenever I think of artificial intelligence, I also think of the intelligent criminal. I can only hope that this association reflects an unnecessary worry on my part.