Lexical Compendium
Wait... what is this? Sometimes I come across a word, phrase, idiom, quote, reference, bit of slang, person of interest, etc that either I don't know or I find amusing, interesting, etc. This is a collection of those items so that I can refer back to them in emails, texts, etc.
Recent Entries:
humanic
For a while now, I've been searching for a term that captures human-made creativity -- as opposed to something created by an LLM. Occasionally I see the word organic used in this context. [1] It works, but it feels a little off. Organic implies something that happens naturally, often without human involvement.
Here I'd like to proffer humanic: a word meaning pertaining to or originating from human agency or creativity, particularly in contrast to work produced by AI. An appropriate antonym in this context might be synthetic. So: humanic and synthetic. I like the symmetry.
The word humanic isn't actually new. Historically, it referred to the study of human nature.[2] But let's reclaim it to also denote cultural artifacts made by humans in a world where if feels like we're just moments away from being saturated with purely synthetic content. Maybe others will organically come upon this usage. I'll use this space to record any sightings.
The word humanic is not necessarily anti-AI, it is descriptive of origin, not ideology. We may need another word to convey sentiment and preference.
Example:
"Oh, I love the theater. It's so refreshing to see content that is entirely humanic."
Note: Anthropic might have also been a good choice, but this, ironically, is already the name of a popular LLM.[3]
Other contenders: anthrogenic, anthropogenic
Updates:
(link to this entry)
References:
- Stat Significant: How Much AI Will Audiences Accept in Music and Movies? Reference ID stat-sig-ai
- Definition: Humanics Reference ID definition-humanics
- Wikipedia: Anthropic Reference ID wikipedia-anthropic
- YouTube: Thomas Flight - Why AI "Art" Feels So Wrong Reference ID youtube-thomasflight-whyaiart
- The Independent: The most downloaded country song in the US right now was made by AI Reference ID independent-breaking-rust
- Mastodon Toot @anderseknert - highlighting an interaction between an AI bot and a human with a rejected pull request Reference ID mastodon-anderseknert-116056950299738296
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neologism
A neologism is a newly coined word or expression.
(link to this entry)
References:
- Definition: neologism Reference ID definition-neologism
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phononics
Phononics is the study of the behavior and control of mechanical vibrations and acoustic waves in materials.
The word is derived from phonon (a quantum of vibrational energy in a crystal lattice, analogous to a photon in light). It seems to be a relatively new neologism, as it doesn't have an entry in conventional dictionaries.
I first came upon this word in a Science magazine article titled Does the mantis shrimp pack a phononic shield?. The study provides experimental proof that the mantis shrimp’s club acts like a biological shock absorber, using phononic filtering to prevent damage.
(link to this entry)
References:
- Does the mantis shrimp pack a phononic shield? - Science, 387, 659–666, 2025. Reference ID does-the-mantis-shrimp-pack-a-phononic-shield
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