Dictionary.com is the latest group to reveal its choice for 2023’s Word of the Year.
While Merriam-Webster already chose “authentic” as its Word of the Year and the Oxford-English Dictionary picked “rizz,” Dictionary.com went another way, going with “hallucinate.”
The site’s senior editor and head of lexicography say they chose a word they feel represents the impact artificial intelligence will have on the future of language and life. The word is defined as “(of artificial intelligence) to produce false information contrary to the intent of the user and present it as if true and factual.”
So, why did this word stand out from all the others? Dictionary.com staff say they saw a 45% increase in searches for hallucinate this year compared to last year, along with similar increases for hallucination. Plus, there was an 85% increase in the use of the word hallucinate in digital media this year.
Notes Grant Barrett, head of lexicography, “Hallucinate as our 2023 Word of the Year encapsulates technology’s continuing impact on social change, and the continued discrepancy between the perfect future we envision and the messy one we actually achieve.”