“Cloud computing” is the latest term for SaaS (“Software as a Service”), which was a later term for ASP (“Application Service Provider”). Classic re-branding to distance the current version of something from its old-fashioned ancestry.
Remember “neural networks”? That was a term that meant an approximation in circuitry or software of the human nervous system. A very loose approximation. But naming something gives it substance and validity, whether or not there’s any there, there.
“Artificial intelligence” is an aging phrase that has not been realized. First we have to define “intelligence” more precisely, in order to have a chance of creating it by science and engineering. Are we talking about an intelligent amoeba? Probably, but the term is used by many to describe what is commonly believed to emulate human thought.
Put these together and you have a confidently delivered description of an entrepreneur’s offering to the interested investor: “Our proprietary algorithms are accessible from the cloud, offering zero infrastructure access to the neural networks that can be employed to solve complex resource allocation challenges. This is third generation artificial intelligence built into advanced software-as-a-service.”
Yes, someone actually said this to me. If spoken with resolve and confidence, backed by an impressive resume, one might hope to charm an investor into writing a big check.
The language we use is indeed powerful. The words, syntax, verb structure, use of gender and many other facets of language all contribute to the effect that words have on other people. This much is widely known and commonly accepted. What is now coming to light in research about language and human perception of reality is that the language we acquire can dramatically affect how we experience our world, what we remember, and what we think of as the truth.
Dr. Lera Boroditsky, professor of cognitive psychology at Stanford, conducts research around the world, studying the relationship between cognitive function and language. An example she cites: a 5-year-old aboriginal girl in northern Australia is able to instantly point north when asked, whether or not she is outside or inside, day or night, eyes open or closed. A lecture hall full of graduate students and professors, when asked to perform the same small task, is largely terrible at doing so. Many decline to reveal their incompetence. How is this related to language?
As it turns out, the aboriginal girl’s tribe does not use language about spatial position based upon relative reference points, such as “left” or “right,” “next to” or “in front of,” etc. The Kuuk Thaayorre language spoken in the Pormpuraaw region of Australia only uses cardinal directions. For example, instead of “My brother is next to the dog,” our native child would say, “My brother is southeast of the dog.” This constant use of the compass points creates a cognitive ability to continually hold cardinal directions in consciousness.
When asked to place pictures of timed events in order of their duration (eating a banana, a crocodile growing to maturity, a man aging over a lifetime), people who spoke Hebrew put the cards in order of increasing duration, from right to left. People who spoke English did the sequence in reverse. But the Kuuk Thaayorre people placed the cards from east to west, automatically, no matter what direction they were facing when asked to perform the task. Therefore, these Australian aboriginal people are forever connected to the cardinal directions, bound inextricably and unconsciously to a larger frame of reference than themselves. This language structure causes them to think in a holistic manner, affecting how they view the world, how they experience reality.
One description of life is a collection of memories. If we don’t remember events and experiences, how can we say we actually lived them? Well, language has been shown to affect what someone remembers. For example, Dr. Boroditsky and her colleague Caitlin Fausey published studies in 2010 that showed eyewitness accounts depended upon the language employed. When an event was causative, i.e., an intentional act, people who spoke different languages (Spanish, English, Japanese) had no trouble recounting the event: “The man popped the balloon.” But when the events were shown as accidents, people remembered the actions differently, depending upon their native language. Spanish and Japanese-speaking observers had difficulty remembering how the event occurred and were not accurate in describing who did what. English-speaking observers fared better in these cases, recalling the event accurately. It is thought that because the convention of Spanish and Japanese is to distance a person from the embarrassment of being part of a clumsy accident — to save face — that these individuals cannot form accurate memories of unintentional, yet causative events. “Se rompio el florero” (“the vase broke”) is silent on causation, while “John broke the vase” is clear.
English can be intentionally manipulated to affect how the message is received and remembered, of course. When Dick Cheney shot his hunting buddy, he explained that, “Ultimately, I’m the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry.” That almost sounds like Cheney was an involuntary dupe in someone else’s plan. George Bush explained it as “…he heard a bird flush, and he turned and pulled the trigger and saw his friend get shot.” But these transitive, indirect descriptions are intuitively rejected by English speakers, because we have learned the subject-verb-predicate structure from day one.
It is very useful to remember that our language affects our thoughts, every bit as much as our thoughts affect our language. This awareness can increase our ability to understand each other, to avoid being conned and to improve the range of reality we experience.
February 4, 2011