Language Log

When I first encountered AI Overview (AIO) about half a year ago, I was amazed by how it would whirl and swirl while searching for an answer to whatever query I had entered into the Google search engine.  It would usually find a helpful answer within a second.

As the months passed, the response time became more rapid (usually instantaneous), the answers better organized and almost always helpful, but sometimes AIO would simply not answer.

About a week ago, I was stunned when occasionally AIO — after thinking for a split second — would declare that it didn't have an answer for what I had asked about.

Found on X:

Listen for yourself:

The PRC uses hànyǔ pīnyīn 汉语拼音 ("Sinitic spelling") for phonetic annotation, Taiwan uses zhùyīn fúhào 注音符號 ("phonetic symbols") for the same purpose.  Since we are well acquainted with pīnyīn, but not very familiar with zhùyīn fúhào, I will focus on the latter in this post:

Mark Swofford, "If you ever find yourself stuck on how to pronounce English", Pinyin News (5/7/23):

Here are some lyrics from a popular song, “Count on Me,” by Bruno Mars, with a Mandarin translation. The interesting part is that a Taiwanese third-grader has penciled in some phonetic guides for him or herself, using a combination of zhuyin fuhao (aka bopo mofo) (sometimes with tone marks!), English (as a gloss for English! and English pronunciation of some letters and numbers), and Chinese characters (albeit not always correctly written Chinese characters — not that I could do any better myself). Again, this is a Taiwanese third-grader and so is someone unlikely to know Hanyu Pinyin.

shaing tai suggests this "possible clue about the mystery":

"11 Wàn yuán yī kē Angōng niúhuáng wán, guòqí 'shényào' chéng tiānjià cángpǐn hūyoule shéi”

Wèishéme guòqí de Angōng niúhuáng wán rúcǐ zǒuqiào? Shāndōng zhōng yīyào dàxué yào xuéyuàn shēngyào xì zhǔrèn Lǐ Fēng jiàoshòu fēnxī, xiànzài shìchǎng shàng zhǔyào shōugòu 1993 nián qián shēngchǎn de Angōng niúhuáng wán, qí zhǔyào yuányīn jiùshì,1989 nián wǒguó shíshī “Yěshēng dòngwù bǎohù tiáolì”, xiàndìng 1993 nián yǐhòu, yěshēng xīniújiǎo bèi mínglìng jìnzhǐ yòng yú zhìyào yuánliào, yuán yǒu de shèngyú xījiǎo yuánliào bèi fēngcún, yòng yú yánjiū děng tèshū yòngtú. Shēngchǎn chǎngjiā yúshì gǎi yòng shuǐniú jiǎo de nóngsuō fěn tìdài tā. Cǐwài, tiānrán niúhuáng, tiānrán shèxiāng yě hěn ángguì, yóuyú yuánliào xīquē, xiànzài de Angōng niúhuáng wán duō gǎi yòng réngōng shèxiāng děng tìdài pǐn.

Today's SMBC:

From Michael David Johnson:

I found this sign (image below) on Queen's Road West near Exit A of the Sai Ying Pun MTR in Hong Kong. The shop was closed but I think it's a Chinese Medicine shop. Google gives me no results for "recycled bezoar" or "bezoar reciclado," so I seek your knowledge. Bad translation or just something that's not (ever) written in English? I assume from the Portuguese that this must be popular in Macau too?

This elevator panel image was sent to me by Nick Kaldis:

Today's SMBC:

Someone recently wrote to tell me that he had:

…constructed a linguistic theoretical framework based on the principle of "one-to-one correspondence between Chinese characters or symbols and their semantics", aiming to explore the mathematical basis of language symbol structure, semantic relationships, and context adaptation.

It was a longish communication and all in Chinese except for one word.  He said that he had a 50-page "Beamer" presentation that he wanted to show me to convince me of the worthiness of his project.  "Beamer" was the only word in his message that I couldn't understand.  So I google it, and AIO instantaneously returned the following:

The first four panels of today's SMBC:

In this comment to "'Neutrino Evidence Revisited (AI Debates)' | Is Mozart's K297b authentic?" (11/13/24), I questioned whether John Searle's "Chinese room" argument was intelligently designed and encouraged those who encounter it to reflect on what it did — and did not — demonstrate.

In the same comment, I also queried the meaning of "understand" and its synonyms ("comprehend", and so forth).

Both the "Chinese room" and "understanding" had been raised by skeptics of AI, so here I'm treating them together.