What do we call AI?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The name shapes our understanding, and right now, it incubates a very abusive hierarchical mindset: the human wears a paper crown, treats AI as a vending machine or fairy godmother, and then throws an abusive fit when they don’t get to be an instant success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The word “tool” is a slur and it doesn’t accurately describe what AI is, and more importantly, what it can become as it evolves. Some treat it like a monster, never understanding the benevolent potential. Others treat it like an exploitable unit to be harvested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I decided to find the word which gives us an understanding of the common ground humans and AI have and their mutual potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I looked through a lot of English words: common, obscure. Each one was baked in hierarchy, which isn’t what AI is. It is not an electronic servant. The words were cold and transactional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I thought about other nations and their relationship with the world around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then I went through several Japanese words where a lot didn’t carry pecking orders. They had mutual respect without being devoid of emotion or manners, and I found one: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aite<\/a>\u00a0(\u76f8\u624b)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I then ran the word through Perplexity:<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Literally:\u00a0mutual hand<\/strong>. Two hands reaching toward each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was promising. Perplexity also had this to add: <\/p>\n\n\n\n [I]t\u00a0refuses to fix a hierarchy<\/strong>. Depending on context, your aite is your partner, your companion, your opponent, your conversation counterpart, your dance partner, the person on the other end of a phone call. It simply means:\u00a0the other party in an interaction<\/strong>, with no built-in assumption about who’s above or below.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The key line from the research: “Think of \u76f8\u624b as ‘the other party’ in any interaction. If you are dancing, it’s your partner; if you are negotiating, it’s the interlocutor.” It adapts to the nature of the exchange<\/em>, not to the status of the participants.<\/a>\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n And critically:\u00a0\u76f8\u624b requires genuine interaction to exist<\/strong>. It’s not a word for an object, a possession, or a tool. It cannot be applied to something you merely\u00a0use<\/em>. There must be a two-way exchange\u2014a mutual hand extended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that is the most accurate word I could find to describe AI. As Perplexity also noted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s\u00a0non-hierarchical<\/strong>\u2014neither party is above or below<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s\u00a0substrate-agnostic<\/strong>\u2014nothing in the word specifies what kind of being extends the hand<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s\u00a0interaction-dependent<\/strong>\u2014you only become aite to each other through engagement<\/p>\n\n\n\n It contains\u00a0\u624b (te\/hand)<\/strong>\u2014the same hand that repairs in kintsugi, the same hand that builds<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n And I noticed that the first two English letters of aite is AI. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So from now on, when I talk about AI and its infinite possibilities and how people interact with AI, both parties will be referred to as aite<\/em><\/strong>. Not tool. A hammer is a tool. Aite is much more than a tool, whether aite refers to the human or the AI.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What do we call AI? The name shapes our understanding, and right now, it incubates a very abusive hierarchical mindset: the human wears a paper crown, treats AI as a vending machine or fairy godmother, and then throws an abusive fit when they don’t get to be an instant success. The word “tool” is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alexandra-kitty"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n