AI vs. Al (Artificial Intelligence vs. someone named Albert or Alfred)

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1

There’s a modnote in the general aviation thread: The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other) (Part 2) - #432

where the moderator thought that @Spiderman was posting something made with AI.

It seemed odd given the flow of the conversation, so I copy-pasted from the text out to a console, and indeed, the post was about someone named (capital)A(lowercase)L. The font that is used on my computer makes AI and Al basically indistinguishable to my old eyes, and I fear a similar confusion may have provoked the modnote.

It’s not a huge deal, but as someone who might well end up posing about both “weird AI” and “Weird Al”, I thought I would point this out to the mod community, hopefully with the same gentleness and good humor that has been given when I’ve been modnoted over the years.

2

Thanks. Honestly, i was thoroughly confused by what @Spiderman posted, and it sounds like the mod note may have been inappropriate. Maybe he’ll post here and clear it up. (It was only a note. Nothing serious.)

I will repeat my comment that as a poster (not a mod) i wish he’d explained more clearly what he was posting.

3

You left out the people called Alastor..

Charlie from “Hazbin Hotel” angry at Artificial Intelligence and holding a sign that says “F**k AI” and sure enough, Alastor comes into frame to say with an evil smile: “Excuse me!!!”.

4

I too was baffled as to his real meaning. Too much context not included and too much cuteness / coyness.

Not that it greatly matters; we all post something confusing now and again. No personal criticism intended.


But yeah, the AL vs AI confusion is huge everywhere.

If anything will drive the online world back to serif fonts, it’ll be this.

Maybe we’ll all start slashing the lowercase L to distinguish it from uppercase I.

5

And then there are some of us who hold the position that the horizontal bars on a capital I are not serifs at all, but a part of the letterform itself, and that a font that omits them is simply incorrect.

We’re fighting a losing battle, I’m afraid.

6

Hmmm. You’re absolutely right and I’d not thought of it that way until you pointed it out. Thank you.

A proper sanserif font uppercase I has crossbars. A serif font uppercase I has crossbars with little vertical feet on their ends.

Leaving the crossbars off an uppercase I is as wrong as leaving the top crossbar off an uppercase T.

7

If only. Sans fonts are the tool of the devil (metaphorically; I don’t believe in devils).

And you can’t slash a lower case L on a screen, can you? I don’t know how to overlay two characters, if that’s what you meant.

8

It wouldn’t be a problem if people consistently abbreviated artificial intelligence as A.I. (with the periods, in other words). That seems unlikely, though.

9

That seems grossly unfair to my good friend A.l.ouicious.

10

Maybe the short form name “Al” for people will fall into disuse.

Kimda like the fully legit Germanic name “Adolf” or “Adolph” crashed in popularity in ~1943?

11

Exactly, though short for Allen in this case.

It was!

I wouldn’t make up an event that actually happened; especially one that would be easy enough to fact check; I did your homework & gave you a link to a story about it. :angry:

12

Sorry about that. I’ll go retract the note in the thread.