engskills | Education

Telegram-канал engskills - Advanced English Skills

28487

#ielts #toefl #gre #english_vocabulary #english

Subscribe to a channel

Advanced English Skills

Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
dish out (2)

If you dish out something like criticism or advice, you give it often and without much thought.

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Word of the Day
inaugural

Definition: (adjective) Serving to set in motion.
Synonyms: initiative, initiatory, maiden, first.
Usage: The magazine's inaugural issue sold out in a matter of days, prompting the owners to publish the second issue in larger numbers.
Discuss

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Language Log
Capitalization in the constitution?

A few years ago (in "…'such matters as Opinion, not real worth, gives a value to'", 11/20/2016), based on reading Mary Astell's 1694 work A serious proposal to the ladies, for the advancement of their true and greatest interest, I asked:

Why did authors from Astell's time distribute initial capital letters in the apparently erratic way that they did?

And I quoted Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Introduction to Late Modern English, 2009:

The use of extra initial capitals, according to Osselton, steadily increased during the first half of the eighteenth century to about 100 per cent around the 1750s after which this practice was drastically reduced and, fifty years later, abandoned completely. The reason for giving up the practice to capitalise all nouns was pressure from writers, who felt that they could not longer make use of capitals to emphasize individual words, as they had been accustomed to do before such idiosyncratic use of capitals was standardised by the printers.

This doesn't really answer the question asked today in an email from Joseph Huang, who links to my 2016 post, and asks: "I saw your blog post about capitalization. I am wondering whether you have studied capitalization in the Constitution."
Joseph continues:

It appears to me most of the nouns, if not all, are capitalized. For example, in the preamble, I only find "defence" is not capitalized, all the other nouns are capitalized.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

All the nouns in Art. 1 Sec. 1 are capitalized.

"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."

"Vacancies" in Art. 1 Sec. 2 Clause 4 is not capitalized.

"When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies."

The 11th Amendment was passed by Congress on March 4, 1794, and ratified by the states on February 7, 1795. In this amendment, there is a significantly smaller percentage of nouns capitalized. But Judicial (adj), Citizens, Subjects, Foreign (adj) State are still capitalized. So such capitalization means Citizens and State are proper nouns? But what about Judicial and Foreign? Note that law and equity are not capitalized, but they are capitalized in the Constitution (Art. III Sec. 2).

"The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State."

This is confusing to me: how the drafters of the Constitution and the amendments decide what to capitalize? Are you aware of any linguistic studies of capitalization in the Constitution and the amendments?

Short answer: No. Maybe some commenters will contribute references to relevant linguistic studies?

But I am aware of some work by legal scholars that makes a relevant point, e.g. Akhil Reed Amar, "Our Forgotten Constitution: A Bicentennial Comment", The Yale Law Journal 1987:

This is a story about the Constitution that begins with some rather shocking facts: The parchment that all of us — practitioners, judges, scholars — have been using for the last century as the definitive copy of the supreme law of the land, is not. The handwritten, handsigned document enshrined in the National Archives and reprinted everywhere was never ratified by "We the People of the United States." Even the Senate is on rec[...]

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
pooped

very tired, exhausted

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Idiom of the Day
knock (someone) over with a feather

To shock, confuse, or astonish someone to a point of complete bewilderment; throw someone for a loop. More often phrased as "you could have knocked me over with a feather," expressing great bewilderment or surprise. Watch the video

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

⚠️ Best of English Learning Channels
👉 @EnglishLearn
---------
🟧𝙁𝙍𝙀𝙀 𝙐𝘿𝙀𝙈𝙔 𝘾𝙊𝙐𝙍𝙎𝙀𝙎🟧
👉 @discudemy
🟪50000+ 𝙁𝙍𝙀𝙀 𝘾𝙊𝙐𝙍𝙎𝙀𝙎🟪
👉 @CourseVania1
English natives 🪧
👉 @sirjimmy
~
Wonderful Thoughts ❤️‍🔥
👉 @InspiringThoughts
Book Stores 🔥
👉 @bookstoretelegram
🟣𝑳𝑨𝑻𝑬𝑺𝑻 𝑭𝑹𝑬𝑬 𝑪𝑶𝑼𝑹𝑺𝑬𝑺🟣
👉 @freshercooker_official
~
HD Wallpapers ❤
👉 @newwallp
🔴𝐑𝐄🅰𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚜¹⁸⁺🔪🫣🟥
👉 @Realityleaks_LeakLive
Paid books 📔
👉 @bookskiki
~
Naughty Relationship 😍
👉 @relation_ship_goal
English vocabulary
👉 @learnvocabularyenglish_2022
ROMANTIC NOVELS 📚📚
👉 @bettytv
~
❤️Girls Quotes❤️
👉 @gentlewomensayings
Business Inspiration 💼
👉 @Entrepreneursquotes
Latest News Update 💙
👉 @NewsExclusive
~
Telegram Theme ❤
👉 @themetelegramhd
Game Play ☣
👉 @allgamer10
Learning Land 📝
👉 @EnglishLearningland1
~
Bts official channel 🥵
👉 @foreverbulletproof7
Silence Speaks 🍃
👉 @QuietWorld
Did you know facts 😱
👉 @learnforyou2020
~
Thoughts and quotes
👉 @psycho_thought_s
😱WHOA! Facts🤯
👉 @factstem
Why 🔮
👉 @whysoserioushmmm
~
Funny Memes 😹
👉 @dejavumemes
English is Everywhere 🌍
👉 @EnglishIsEverywhere
Best relationship tips
👉 @loveandrelationshiptips
~
General Knowledge 💡
👉 @GKCURRENTGK
ßêst Çhâññêl Før 🅲🅰 Quiz
👉 @Current_Affairs_Quizzess
Relationship goals ⚖
👉 @relationgoal
~
Motivational Thoughts 🖊
👉 @Motivational_Zone
🆓 Certification Course
👉 @free_certification_courses
Sirf Discount
👉 @sirfDiscount
~
Udemy coupons code ⁉️
👉 @udemy_coupons1
BEST LIFE HACKS✅
👉 @Life_hacks_11
Love Nature 🥀
👉 @LovelyNature
~
  Tricks & loots
👉 @theultimatelootfactory
ROMANTIC MOVIE 🔞🍿
👉 @avatar_the_last_airbenda
Earn with Crypto 🚀
👉 @cryptosupdatess
~
Sell&Buy Products 💸
👉 @SizelessMarket
🟥FREE SHOPPING 🟥
👉 @flipkart_looter_deals
✅Total English Language✅
👉 @TotalEng
~
🖌𝕱𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝓝 𝕼𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒮🖍
👉 @fiction_Quote
Handouts Teachers ⏳
👉 @LanguageStuff
super hacking😝
👉 @superbhacker
~
Joyous Life 🍀
👉 @JoyousLifeOfficial
Movies & More 📽
👉 @trapped_minds
Adult Movie 🔞
👉 @official_gidsglobal
~
learn English 🗒
👉 @Englishphilia
English podcasts
👉 @esl_sam
TAX TIPS
👉 @taxtantri
~
💰Financial Freedom 💰
👉 @FinancialFreedomMagazine
𝐈𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐒𝐒𝐂 𝐔𝐏𝐒𝐂 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊 👌
👉 @GK_Tricks_HandwrittenNotes_Hindi
💯Be Inspired✅
👉 @corporatebytes
~
learn English idioms
👉 @EnglishbyNoorAamir
Entertaining Facts 💢
👉 @diplyfacts
FREE YOUTUBE VIDEO ✅
👉 @funwithsam7
~
📚Interesting Facts 🤯
👉 @guinnessworldsrecord
ኢትዮ ጥቅሳ ጥቅስ
👉 @ethio_tksa_tks
Arts & Core 🖍
👉 @everless_Beauty
~
Life Talks
👉 @life_talks
🌷Only4girls
👉 @masterinstructor63
Feelings 💞
👉 @confess_your_feelings
~
WhatsApp Status 😍
👉 @sabseachestatus
Bestselling eBooks 📚
👉 @eBooksThief
Truely Inspiring 💚
👉 @HighImpact
~
Electrifying Thoughts 💜
👉 @MostInspiring
Love Quotes 💓
👉 @lovequotesvideo
✅Amazing Quotes✅
👉 @supremeguide
~
Learn English
👉 @english_vocabulary_grammar
𝗧𝗢𝗘𝗙𝗟 𝗧𝗜𝗣𝗦 & 𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗦✅
👉 @TOEFL_EXERCISES
English Speakers 🗣
👉 @English_Speakers
~
WordPress hacks 📬
👉 @wordpresshacks
Black Hacker 👹
👉 @black_hat_hacker_master
🟥𝘿𝘼𝙄𝙇𝙔 𝙁𝙍𝙀𝙀 𝘾𝙊𝙐𝙍𝙎𝙀𝙎🟥
👉 @Udacity_Skillshare_Coursera_Edx
~
English Proficiency 🧾
👉 @EngSkills
🟩𝙁𝙍𝙀𝙀 𝙐𝘿𝙀𝙈𝙔 𝘾𝙊𝙐𝙋𝙊𝙉𝙎🟩
👉 @Paid_Courses_For_Free_Daily

Free Paid Apps 📲
👉 @moded2apps
~~~
⚠️ Add your Channels

~

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Word of the Day
Word of the Day: futile

This word has appeared in 184 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
get along

If two people get along, they like each other and are friendly.

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Word of the Day
emanation

Definition: (noun) Something that issues from a source.
Synonyms: emission.
Usage: The sulphuretted hydrogen emanations, which Captain Burton mentions, could be distinctly smelt.
Discuss

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Language Log
Deutsche Zungenbrecher

"Some German tongue-twisters", posted on 21/07/2024 by StephenJones.blog

Whereas the mind-boggling “tapeworm words” in my post on Some German mouthfuls are of a practical nature, the realm of fantasy opens up whole new linguistic vistas. In a stimulating article, Deborah Cole introduces the work of the Berlin-based cabaret performer, playwright, and pianist Bodo Wartke.
She begins with some drôle political context:

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a former defence minister with a dastardly difficult name to say, was long seen as a likely successor to the relatively pronounceable ex-chancellor, Angela Merkel. Kramp-Karrenbauer’s resignation as the conservatives’ party chief came as a relief to news presenters the world over, clearing the way for the tight three-syllabic Olaf Scholz. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, once a federal justice minister and the ultimate double-barrelled tongue-tripper, was not invited to join his cabinet.

Now Bodo Wartke and his musical partner Marti Fischer have gone viral with their rap-tinged Zungenbrecher (“tongue-breakers”)—notably  “Barbaras Rhabarberbar” (recorded in 144 takes!), the story of a bar owner named Barbara who enchants all who try her rhubarb cake, including a group of bushy-bearded, beer-swilling barbarians who bring their barber back to try a bite….

The post includes the two part video of “Barbaras Rhabarberbar”.  En passant, I heard "barber shop" and "abracadabra".

The related readings at the bottom include a link to an entertaining post on German compound nouns (Bandwurmwörter “tapeworm words”).
Selected readings

* "Long words" (6/25/18)
* "German lexicographic richness" (10/11/21)
* "The Germans have a word for it" (9/9/09)
* "Verschlimmbessert" (3/13/15)
* "Translating the untranslatable" (10/28/10)
* "TFW" (12/28/16)
* "Googlefreude, Googleschaden, Schadengoogle…" (1/2/07)
* "German wordcraziness rules" (12/18/22)
* "Googlefreude, Googleschaden, Schadengoogle…" (1/2/07)
* "Schadenfreudeful" (4/20/19)
* "Herrgottsbescheisserle" (9/4/20)
* "Five words" (6/30/20) — this comment and several of the following comments, including this one where I introduce a word my Austrian father taught me when I was a little boy:  Constantinopolitanischerdudellsackpfeiffenmachergesellschaft (Constantinople Bagpipe Manufacturing Company)
➖ Sent by @TheFeedReaderBot

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
keep in

to make someone stay in a place like a school or a hospital

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Word of the Day
precede

Definition: (verb) Furnish with a preface or introduction.
Synonyms: preface, premise, introduce.
Usage: She always precedes her lectures with a joke.
Discuss

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

bruary say LLMs should not reject more than 5 per cent of the questions put to them.

LOL!  If, heaven forbid, I had to live in the the PRC, I could defeat the system very easily:  I would just keep asking difficult political questions, such as the treatment of Uyghurs and Tibetans and policies regarding languages other than Mandarin.  But then the system would undoubtedly report ME for being obstreperous, and I would be brought in to drink tea.

The safest policy, one that has been adopted by some LLM companies, is just to reject all questions that touch upon Xi Jinping.  Another is to ensure that their chatbots can only supply answers that are certifiably safe by government censors.

AI with socialist characteristics reminds me of mathematics with socialist characteristics, physics with socialist characteristics, chemistry with socialist characteristics, English literature studies with socialist characteristics… — all bound to fail miserably.
Selected readings

* "Government dampers on AI in the PRC", (7/16/24)
* "The perils of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the PRC" (4/17/23) — with extended bibliography

[Thanks to Mark Metcalf]

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
abortion

a total failure

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Idiom of the Day
knick-knack

Any miscellaneous trinket or toy, especially one that is delicate or dainty. Watch the video

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Idiom of the Day
be knocking on heaven's door

To be dying; to be approaching or very close to death (i.e., about to be admitted into the afterlife). Watch the video

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

ord as acknowledging that this revered document has virtually no legal significance. No kidding.

Fortunately, the document that was ratified by Americans in the late 1780's — an edition printed in New York several days after the signing of the parchment in Philadelphia — bears a close resemblance to the text we have all grown up with. Although the official printed archetype of the Constitution (whose existence has for many years been a well kept if unintended secret) is marked by different punctuation and capitalization, the words are the same as those in the familiar parchment. Thus, the National Archives version is probably good enough for government work.

In other words, constitutional capitalization was a stochastic sociolinguistic process. It might be revealing to construct a statistical model of capitalization practices in the relevant regions of time and space, but I don't think anyone has done it.

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Word of the Day
Word of the Day: revue

This word has appeared in 52 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
dig up

If you dig up something, you get it from under the ground by digging.

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Word of the Day
eloquence

Definition: (noun) Powerful and effective language.
Synonyms: fluency, smoothness.
Usage: The preacher's eloquence attracted a large congregation.
Discuss

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Language Log
Taiwan(ese) Taiwanese

This has become a hot button issue in recent weeks.

Do we need such a term?  What does it signify?

Is there any other kind of Taiwanese?

We have Australian English, British English, and American English; we have Canadian / Quebec French and Belgian French and Louisiana French (I love to hear it), and Swiss French…; Caribbean Spanish, Castilian Spanish, Andean Spanish, Rioplatense Spanish, Canarian Spanish, Central American Spanish, Andalusian Spanish, Mexican Spanish…; Taiwan Mandarin, PRC Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM), Sichuan Mandarin, Northeastern Mandarin….

What's the contrasting / distinguishing term for "Taiwan(ese) Taiwanese"?
Here's an article in Chinese in a Taiwan newspaper that argues for the name of Minnan language on Formosa to be "rectified (zhèngmíng 正名)" as "Táiwān Táiyǔ 台灣台語" ("Taiwan[ese] Taiwanese").  Here's Chau Wu's reaction to the article:

Oy vey! The news network you cited from belongs to the pro-China, pro-"Re-unification" United Daily News organization (Note: PRC has never controlled Taiwan, and the latter has never been part of the former, so why call it "re-unification"?). Of course, their reporters will seek out opinions from the so-called scholars who would spit out such non-sense.
Please take a look at the following YouTube video on Ayo's YouTube channel, Tâi-lâm muē-á kà lí kóng Tâi-gí (A Tainan Girl Teaches You Taiwanese). She provides some cogent information regarding this controversial issue. She speaks in Taiwanese, but you can read the Mandarin subtitles. EP0【台語的迷思】台語為什麼不叫閩南語?學台語的重要性是啥?|台南妹仔教你講台語

There is a recent article in BBC, "Tainan: The 400-year-old cradle of Taiwanese culture." In it the writer mentions his interview with this YouTuber. Tainan: The 400-year-old cradle of Taiwanese culture (7/10/24)

[VHM:  This is a worthy article, covering many facets about the history and culture of Tainan.  What the author, Will Buckingham, has to say about Ayo makes clear that she is a treasure for the preservation of Taiwanese language.]

Ayo summarizes it very nicely: Tai-gi is a proper noun, which was developed during the Japanese era and this term has been in customary use since then.  Even the dictator Chiang Ka-shek used this term. The situation is no different than the American usage of "English" in this country. This term is a historic term, and is a proper noun. Americans never give a thought to its nominal incongruity (a wrong language in a wrong country – Italian spoken in Italy, Icelandic in Iceland, Japanese in Japan, etc. But English in America?).

I think Chau put it very nicely, especially as he added in a subsequent note:

On another aspect – When I first saw the term 臺灣台語 (Taiwanese of Taiwan), I knew it was another example of artificial bureaucratese. My reaction: another "oy vey"! Is it so difficult to simply call it "Taiwanese" without the redundant appendage of "of Taiwan"? In UK, is English called "English of England"? Similarly, Japanese of Japan? Icelandic of Iceland?

Taiwan(ese) Taiwanese — enough already! Selected readings

* "Mixed script writing in Taiwan" (5/24/24)
* "A crack in the hegemonic edifice of hanzi" (5/23/24)
* Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Taiwan's language situation
* Dozens of Language Log posts touching upon American English, British English, Australian English

[h.t. shaing tai]

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
mosh pit

an area in front of the stage at a rock concert where people dance energetically, or "mosh"

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Idiom of the Day
knock Anthony

obsolete To knock one's knees together while walking or running (i.e., be "knock-kneed"). Watch the video

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

⚠️ Best of English Learning Channels
👉 @EnglishLearn
---------

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Language Log
Reading Old Turkic runiform inscriptions with the aid of 3D simulation

"Augmenting parametric data synthesis with 3D simulation for OCR on Old Turkic runiform inscriptions: A case study of the Kül Tegin inscription", Mehmet Oğuz Derin and Erdem Uçar, Journal of Old Turkic Studies (7/21/24)

Abstract

Optical character recognition for historical scripts like Old Turkic runiform script poses significant challenges due to the need for abundant annotated data and varying writing styles, materials, and degradations. The paper proposes a novel data synthesis pipeline that augments parametric generation with 3D rendering to build realistic and diverse training data for Old Turkic runiform script grapheme classification. Our approach synthesizes distance field variations of graphemes, applies parametric randomization, and renders them in simulated 3D scenes with varying textures, lighting, and environments. We train a Vision Transformer model on the synthesized data and evaluate its performance on the Kül Tegin inscription photographs. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, with the model achieving high accuracy without seeing any real-world data during training. We finally discuss avenues for future research. Our work provides a promising direction to overcome data scarcity in Old Turkic runiform script.
Aside from the Abstract, the lead author also shared with me the following summary paragraph:

For Old Turkic, there is a problem with the text of inscriptions that they are deformed, etc., due to aging and environmental conditions, and there is not a good enough amount of data that correlates various angles of a glyph to its value, as you know, data is the oil for AI. To tackle this problem, we developed a system where we create completely random strings and put them on virtual inscriptions with photorealistic rendering techniques, and it turns out that works wonders: we have been able to go beyond 80% accuracy for actual photographs without making the AI ever see one. Although we had success for this one, and generating images for training was in an application for paper materials, etc., I am also pondering if it might be helpful for other ancient inscriptions whose systematic nature might be more or less known, but a layer of complexity on the surface makes it more challenging to annotate data, hence making it harder to train with actual photographs or estampages.

I am hoping that the techniques developed here for reading Old Turkic runiform script may also be adapted for use on other historical scripts.
Selected readings

* "Pugu, boga, beg" (8/11/20)
* "Tocharian, Turkic, and Old Sinitic 'ten thousand'" (4/23/19)
* "Northernmost runic finds in the world" (2/10/20)
* "Turkish written with Latin letters half a millennium ago" (8/29/16)
* "Unknown language #18" (6/3/24)
* "Unknown language #17" (5/2/24)
* "On the etymology of the title Tham of Burusho kings" (5/17/20)

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Idiom of the Day
a knife in the back

A grievous or supreme act of treachery or betrayal. (Usually preceding "of/for (someone).") Watch the video

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
piece

a gun

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Language Log
Government dampers on AI in the PRC, part 2

"China deploys censors to create socialist AI:  Large language models are being tested by officials to ensure their systems ‘embody core socialist values’", by Ryan McMorrow and Tina Hu in Beijing, Financial Times (July 17 2024)

Chinese government officials are testing artificial intelligence companies’ large language models to ensure their systems “embody core socialist values”, in the latest expansion of the country’s censorship regime.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), a powerful internet overseer, has forced large tech companies and AI start-ups including ByteDance, Alibaba, Moonshot and 01.AI to take part in a mandatory government review of their AI models, according to multiple people involved in the process.

The effort involves batch-testing an LLM’s responses to a litany of questions, according to those with knowledge of the process, with many of them related to China’s political sensitivities and its President Xi Jinping.
The basic premises under which the testing is being carried out ensure that China's AI efforts will end in abject failure:

Two decades after introducing a “great firewall” to block foreign websites and other information deemed harmful by the ruling Communist party, China is putting in place the world’s toughest regulatory regime to govern AI and the content it generates.

The CAC has “a special team doing this, they came to our office and sat in our conference room to do the audit”, said an employee at a Hangzhou-based AI company, who asked not to be named.

“We didn’t pass the first time; the reason wasn’t very clear so we had to go and talk to our peers,” the person said. “It takes a bit of guessing and adjusting. We passed the second time but the whole process took months.”

So you fail but don't know why you failed, you pass but don't know why you passed.  Par for the course with anything ideologically imbued in China.  That leaves you guessing and eternally hesitant to do anything truly creative.

Self-censorship:  that's the name of the game in the PRC.

The filtering begins with weeding out problematic information from training data and building a database of sensitive keywords. China’s operational guidance to AI companies published in February says AI groups need to collect thousands of sensitive keywords and questions that violate “core socialist values”, such as “inciting the subversion of state power” or “undermining national unity”. The sensitive keywords are supposed to be updated weekly.

Users of PRC AI proucts spot their weaknesses immediately:

The result is visible to users of China’s AI chatbots. Queries around sensitive topics such as what happened on June 4 1989 — the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre — or whether Xi looks like Winnie the Pooh, an internet meme, are rejected by most Chinese chatbots. Baidu’s Ernie chatbot tells users to “try a different question” while Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen responds: “I have not yet learned how to answer this question. I will keep studying to better serve you.”

Nauseatingly useless.

It gets even worse when you start to look at the hyper-sensitive matter of the mind of Xi Jinping:

…Beijing has rolled out an AI chatbot based on a new model on the Chinese president’s political philosophy known as “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, as well as other official literature provided by the Cyberspace Administration of China.

Then it gets really funny when the authorities try to think of ways to make the system seem not entirely resistant to inquiries regarding political topics:

The CAC has introduced limits on the number of questions LLMs can decline during the safety tests, according to staff at groups that help tech companies navigate the process. The quasi-national standards unveiled in Fe[...]

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
throw off

to get rid of something that has been bothering you

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…

Advanced English Skills

Word of the Day
coltish

Definition: (adjective) Lively and playful; frisky.
Synonyms: frolicky, frolicsome, rollicking, sportive.
Usage: The substitute teacher found himself entirely overwhelmed by the energetic seventh-graders, whose coltish antics disrupted the lesson time and time again.
Discuss

➖ @EngSkills

Читать полностью…
Subscribe to a channel