There’s an Art to Naming Your AI, and It’s Not Using ChatGPT
If Sam Altman knew his chatbot was going to change the world, he would have spent more time considering what to call it.
Microsoft is going with “Copilot,” which encapsulates both the power and limitations of AI.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Had he known ChatGPT was going to change the world, Sam Altman said last year, he would have spent more time considering what to call it. “It’s a horrible name, but it may be too ubiquitous to ever change,” he told comedian Trevor Noah during a podcast.
Naming any technology is difficult, but AI is doubly so. It has to evoke a sense of the cutting edge, be at once both sophisticated and safe, perhaps even friendly. A good name leaves room for the technology to grow and change without rendering its moniker obsolete or inaccurate. On top of all this, it has to sound cool.