AI and the English Language

By Paul M. French

I was struggling to write this first paragraph. My original hook was “It’s easier to be a doctor of English than a doctor of medicine. You only have one patient, and the patient is always sick.” 

But then my 2016 Dell Inspiron forced a shutdown. The screen went black, and I spent several minutes contemplating my decision to save all the essential files of this unborn magazine on an eight-year-old laptop. 

Nothing was broken, thankfully. Microsoft had just decided it was a good time to wrest control of their product from the user so they could install an update. When I logged back in, there was a new icon in the bottom right of my toolbar—a double-ribbon of conspicuously babyish blue and pink. Happy. Harmless. I knew immediately what it was. 

Microsoft had just updated my system with a “preview” of its latest AI feature: Copilot, my “everyday AI companion,” the copy read. 

And my new friend was already at work, venturing high-minded (or indeed “other-minded”) solutions to my everyday problems. Maybe I wanted to “create a grocery list for a seafood dinner that’s not too spicy,” “compose a folk song about a day in the life of a wandering cloud,” or “create an Art Nouveau portrait of an elegant antelope.” 

Here’s a shocker: I didn’t want to do any of these things. And I don’t think these wacky suggestions were targeting my particular interests—not yet anyway. More likely, this was pageantry. An attempt to demonstrate what my companion was capable of. A mating display.