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CONVERSATIONAL VOCABULARY

ETERNAL LIFE

Hi there folks, Aaron here, of Deep English. In this audio lesson, I want to introduce you to some words and phrases that Dan and I used in our conversation about AI or artificial intelligence.

1. singularity

The first is singularity. Dan asks me the question, “Do you believe in the singularity?” I answer, “I don’t know, what do you think about that?” What Dan is actually talking about here is a phenomenon that some scientists and futurists predict is going to happen in the future related to the advances in artificial intelligence. The idea is that, as artificial intelligence becomes more technologically advanced and it will start to become more aware, it will develop some kind of consciousness and eventually, those technological changes and advances will become so advanced that the artificial intelligence will surpass the intelligence of human beings and then it becomes a runaway kind of technology in the sense that it continues to improve itself over and over in cycles, so quickly, like continuous cycles of self improvement, that it results in an explosion of intelligence.

When that happens, it’s really hard to predict the changes that are going to happen in human civilization. We may cease to exist, we may be transformed some how. People have different visions of what might happen, but that point is called the singularity. That’s what we’re talking about. If you hear that term, that’s what it means. Most people predict, who know something about this, that this will happen somewhere between 2040 and 2050 so that’s only about 25 years from now or 30 years from now. Some of us may be around to actually experience that. Wouldn’t that be interesting? A little frightening too.

1. bittersweet

Let’s move on to the next one, bittersweet. Perhaps you’ve heard this before. It’s often an adjective that is connected with chocolate because chocolate in its raw form, is a very bitter substance. It is not sweet. It is bitter. That’s why we add sugar to it, to make it more palatable, or edible and of course, more enjoyable to eat.

A bittersweet thing or event or memory or feeling is a mixture of good and bad.

It’s a mixture of happiness and sadness, generally. We often think about bittersweet memories. When you look at photos, especially family photos or you watch family videos from a long time ago, they’re bittersweet because those moments are gone and you’ll never recapture them as you experienced them.

You can only look back and try to remember and those are bittersweet moments.

I think about my children when they were younger. Those kids are gone in some ways. They’re still here now but they’ve evolved and changed so much that it’s bittersweet, looking at those old memories. There could be bittersweet occasions.

A classic example is when a young woman or a young man, gets married. It’s a bittersweet moment for their parents because it represents life moving on. It’s happy and a little sad at the same time. When a child leaves the house and goes off to college, it’s bittersweet for the parents. A coworker who gets promoted and gets a new job at a different company, it’s a coworker that everyone loves, at the going away party, it’s a bittersweet occasion because everyone’s happy for the person for getting a good new job but at the same time, they’re sad to see them go. It’s a bittersweet occasion. I’m sure that all of you have experienced bittersweet moments in your lifetime.

1. kind of

Okay, the next one moving on is kind of, kind of. I say that if we could actually create physical replicas, like digital, physical replicas of people we love or even of ourselves, that would be kind of creepy.

This is a modifier of an adjective. Creepy of course, means uncomfortable in a negative kind of way. To say kind of creepy means somewhat creepy or a little bit creepy or a bit creepy or quite creepy. This is really important because it softens your message. If I say, “That’s creepy,” that’s kind of of a rough, strong way of describing a noun. If I say, “That’s creepy,” that’s really strong. If I say, “That’s kind of creepy,” it leaves it open for a little bit of interpretation from the listener and it makes it easier for people to agree with you. It kind of makes you more likable when you use these modifiers. You’re easy to talk with. You don’t create feelings of strong disagreement so quickly. It allows you to modify even further or explain further if someone questions you. I might say, “That would be kind of creepy,”

and the person listening to me might say, “No it wouldn’t. Really? How so?” I could say, “Well you know, it’s kind of creepy.” Then I can explain it. Use those modifiers.

Also, you should be aware that native speakers almost never say kind of, they say kinda. That’s kinda creepy. Oh, that’s kinda cute. Oh, don’t play with that, that’s kinda dangerous. Like that, kinda, kinda, kinda. Really fast like that, kinda. Be aware of that. I think if you use this modifier sparingly, occasionally, it’ll add a very nice element to the way you communicate. You’ll sound a little bit more like a native speaker.

1. stuff

Okay. Let’s move on to the next one. Stuff. This is another good term. Stuff. We’re talking about AI and I say, “Yeah, this stuff is coming fast. Even in our lifetime, we may see things like that. This stuff is coming fast.” By stuff, in this particular instance, I’m referring to AI, the advances in technology. “That stuff is coming fast.” This is a word you can use to describe, just things, events situations, substances, anything. It’s a catchall term for just, things. You can use this and you’ll hear it quite a bit.

For example, right now, I’m making this recording at my desk and there is just stuff everywhere man. I really need to clean this whole office area. There’s just too much stuff here right now. Of course by stuff, I’m referring to things like pencils and vitamin bottles and, I have a coffee cup and there’s business cards and wires and there’s watches. There’s all kinds of things around here. There’s just too much stuff here. Or, referring to the lesson, the emperor that consumed the mercury. Mercury, it’s a heavy metal. Heavy metals are really toxic. They’re dangerous. That stuff is dangerous. Don’t mess with that stuff. You want to stay away from that stuff. That stuff is a good term to use. All right. Let’s move along.

1. step down that line

Step down that line. Dan says that Carl Young would say that we’re always connected to a collective unconscious and that the internet browser is an extension of that and the coming singularity is maybe just another step down that line of interconnection. Step down that line. This is kind of a way of expressing movement toward or into the future in a linear kind of way. If you perceive of time as being linear, progressing along a line that runs from the past, into the future, we can step down that line, toward something. In this case, interconnection. It’s progression. It expresses progression or movement forward.

Let me give you a few examples. Let’s imagine that a group of people are having difficulty communicating with each other and it leads to problems and finally, someone calls a face-to-face meeting for the first time. “We need to get together and sit down and talk about these problems.” Well, that’s a good step down that line toward better communication. It’s a movement toward better communication. It’s a step down the line, or that line, towards better communication.

You might think about a new law in a society. For example, in the state of California, they just recently passed a new bill raising the age limit to buy a gun and that’s a step down the line toward stricter gun control. That’s a step down the line toward stricter gun control.

1. gone up / run up

All right, the next one is gone up. “Humans have gone up and physically attacked the cars,” I said. They’ve physically gone up and attacked the cars. We’re talking about driverless cars and how humans, recently in the city of San Franscisco, have attacked these cars. A little bit later I said, “Yeah, they ran up and threw their body into the car and smashed the window.” This phrasal verb of go up or run up, just means to approach, to come close to something, the object of whatever action comes next.

You’ll notice in both examples, I’ve combined the phrasal verb with another verb.

Humans have gone up, there’s the phrasal verb and attacked the cars, normal verb. They ran up and threw their body into it. There’s two verbs there, a phrasal verb and another verb.

Here’s another example; the girl went up and gave her friend a hug. The audience, they all ran up and congratulated the boy for winning the race. They ran up and congratulated. Of course, you can use other verbs. Like pull up, if you’re driving a car, you can pull up. That means move the car forward. You could tell the driver, “Hey, pull up and stop at the corner. Pull up over there and park.”

Like that. Those are useful phrasal verbs.

1. Turning Test

Next is the Turing Test. Have you heard of that? The Turing Test. Dan and I really didn’t explain it in our conversation so I’ll take a moment to explain it now. It’s basically a test that, I guess, basically a test started by a man named Turing, I don’t know a whole lot about it although, I do know it’s a test that humans give to robots containing some sort of AI technology, to determine if that AI could pass as a human or be confused with a human. To give you a simple example, let’s imagine that you are chatting, text chat, with a robot. It’s not a human being on the other end, it’s a piece of technology that you’re chatting with and if you cannot distinguish that that “person” that you are speaking with or chatting with, is a robot, if you really believe that it’s a human, then it would pass the Turing Test. However, if it’s obvious that you’re not talking to a human, you’re talking to a robot and you are aware that you are talking to a robot, then it does not pass the Turing Test. The AI is not sophisticated enough to make you think that it’s a real human being or that it is an entity with its own consciousness. That’s the Turing Test.

The movie that I mentioned, Ex Machina, the Turing Test is demonstrated in that movie. I think the main character, one of his roles is to deliver the test to an artificial intelligence robot, an AI robot. Actually, the Turing Test … the first time I ever saw evidence of it, was in the movie Blade Runner. I believe there is a scene, at least one scene in the movie where someone was delivering the Turing Test and I think they were looking very closely at the eye movement of the robot or the AI.

1. low context

All right, moving on, the next one is low context. Low context. Dan says something about passing the Turing Test and I said, “Well, I think it would be easier to pass the test as a chat bot because it’s so low context.” It would be difficult to determine if that’s a robot or a human, especially if it’s quite good at delivering messages.

However, if you can actually see what you’re talking to, it’s higher context and it makes it easier to determine, “Oh, that’s actually a robot, it’s a human being.” If you can’t see what you’re talking to, that’s a lower context.

This idea of context, low and high context, basically, something that’s low context doesn’t give you enough information. If we’re thinking about communication, one of the lowest context forms of communication is text, just chatting in text. That’s very low context. All you can see are words.

A medium context, a little step up, would be audio because then with audio, you can experience a little bit more, you can get more information about someone such as their tone of voice. You can sense emotion in audio a little bit easier. The noise levels, the intonation, all that stuff. Or, if you’re just looking at someone’s body language, if someone’s trying to communication with you and they’re only using their body, no sound at all, that’s a higher context form.

The highest context form is just simple, face-to-face interaction with another person. You can get a lot of information. It’s a much richer context. The example I like to give when demonstrating the difference between the two is, if you meet someone for the very first time, that’s a low context encounter in the sense that you have to do lots and lots and lots of talking in order to understand each other and get to know each other. However, when a spouse, let’s say a woman, looks at her husband, who she’s been married to for 30 years or more and they both look at each other, they don’t need to say anything, just that eye contact, they understand how each other is feeling and what each other is thinking because they have built up, over many, many years, over decades, they’ve built up a history of context so they can easily read each other.

Yeah, it’s a very interesting concept. Some societies are said to be very high context communication societies. Japan is one of them. Whereas, lower context cultures, a lot of English speaking cultures are lower context. You have to do a lot more talking in order to communicate.

1. the middle of nowhere

Okay, moving on, the next is; in the middle of nowhere. This is a nice, easy phrase to remember and to use. In the middle of nowhere. We’re talking about the movie Ex Machina and I say, “Yeah, there’s this guy, he’s a multi-millionaire, Google founder type of person, who lives out in the middle of nowhere. You have to take a helicopter to get where he is.” To live out in the middle of nowhere means to live in an extremely rural location. One that is not close to any modern conveniences. It’s very far away from other people. It’s in the middle of nowhere.

If you want to open a business, let’s say you want to open a convenience store, don’t open it in the middle of nowhere because nobody will go, you won’t have any customers. You need to locate it in a very busy, downtown area that gets lots of foot traffic and bicycle traffic and car traffic. You want to put it where lots of people are. Don’t put it in the middle of nowhere.

If you love nature, you might like living in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. That’s what it means, anything that’s very far away from the modern conveniences of life is in the middle of nowhere.

1. ends up

Okay, two more here. One is ends up, to end up. We’re talking about the movie again and the character who’s administering the Turing Test, ends up falling in love with the robot. When we’re using this term in the past tense, it points to the end of some kind of event or process where the end result is not quite what was expected. For example, last week, I got on the train to go to Tokyo but I got on the wrong train and I ended up in Yokohama. The end result of my action lead my to Yokohama, which is not Tokyo. It’s near Tokyo but it’s not Tokyo. That’s kind of how we use this phrasal verb.

We often will follow it with an -ing verb. He ends up falling in love. I went shopping for a jacket yesterday and I ended up buying a shirt and tie as well. I didn’t plan on it but that’s what happened. I ended up buying other things too. 20 years ago, I went to China because I was very interested in Chinese language and culture but, I ended up living in Japan and marrying a Japanese woman. It’s not what I expected but I ended up living, I ended up marrying. -ing verb, following end up.

However, when we use this looking into the future, we use it to make predictions.

For example, if you don’t wash your hands with soap, you’ll end up getting sick.

You better brush your teeth or you’ll end up getting a cavity. If you practice listening and speaking English every day, you’ll end up fluent, you’ll end up getting fluent, you’ll end up speaking fluent English.

We use it to make predictions in the future and to describe events in the past that turned out or ended up differently than we expected.

1. mad hatter

All right, last one is mad hatter. Dan says, “We call a crazy person, a mad hatter,”

and then he talks a little bit about why. Yeah, a mad hatter is kind of a slang way of calling someone crazy or referring to a crazy person. Other synonyms might be a lunatic. “That guy’s a lunatic man, he’s kind of crazy.” Kind of crazy. “He’s kind of crazy, he’s a lunatic. That guy’s a maniac. Wow. He’s a real mad man, mad woman. She’s a mad woman. A real nut case, a nut job.” As my Cockney friend from London would say, a Nut’a, nutter, nut’a. “He’s a really nut’a. He’s a right nut’a.” Like that.

Okay. That is the end of this commentary. I hope you found some of those words and phrases useful. If you have any questions please, post them in the forum or send us an email and we’ll do our best to get back to you. All right. Hope you guys have a nice day. Buh-bye.