Meaning For Meaning’s Sake

Reclaiming The Rocket Ship Emoji In The AI Age

Oh, hi, yes, hello. I’m doing these now.?

Wait, what are these? Well, they’re uptakes, basically hot takes left to cool by the window. I’ll serve them occasionally when I’m not doing The Upside (it’s a cinematic universe, saaaaaan).?

Are you still there? Great. On with the show…

Have you been delving recently? Lots of people have been delving. And by lots of people, I mean generative AI text bot types.?

Long story short, chatGPT et al. have favourite words. And those words are fast-becoming cheeky little calling cards for said LLMs.?

And it’s not just delve; there are more.

At this point, you’re probably thinking what I’m thinking: GUILTY AS CHARGED, YOUR HONOUR. I mean, I’m embracin’ and leveragin’ till the cows come home on any given day (sans help from any robot friends).

Plus, it’s hardly surprising that LLMs are regurgitating this all-too-common corporate (dare I say LinkedIn) speak back to us.?

But stumble across a post or article punctuated by these AI red flags, and every Tom, Dick, and Harriet is (rightly?) asking one simple question: is the author hooman?

Which, of course, begs the follow-up question: should we hoomans continue using them??

To Lift-Off Or Not To Lift-Off, That Is The Question

LLM’s aren’t just fond of certain words. They’re fond of certain emojis, too.

It turns out the rocket ship is the delve of the emojiverse, a surefire tell that you’re reading AI-generated text.?

Apparently, everyone knows this…

But it came as a surprise to me because, well, I use it ALL THE TIME. It’s kind of my thing (as much as regularly using a highly popular emoji can be anyone’s thing, of course).

And to the best of my knowledge, I am not an LLM.?

You see, it just so happens that the rocket ship is the perfect metaphor for optimism. And I’m a self-styled optimism advocate. So when I reach into my pictographic bag of tricks, I nearly always opt for the trusty rocket.?

(By the way, if you want to read more about why the rocket ship emoji is such a wonderful ambassador for optimism, you can do that here.)?

So, What?

Okay, so if you were to ask me how I feel about all of this, I’d say:

Not using a word or symbol because it has become synonymous with AI-generated text is just another way language is evolving.??

Eschewing certain overused phrases could even be a good thing. It could force us to find better alternatives.?

After all, language matters—like, it really matters. And it's important to think deeply about what words we use and why we use them.

(If you want your mind fully blown here, watch this Ted Talk by Lera Boroditsky.)

But if you were to ask me on a deeper level, I would say:

As we continue to develop AI, we need it to help us become more human, not less.?

Before omitting one of these usual suspects from your writing, ask yourself why you’re using it in the first place.

Like, what if you really do want to delve into something? And you’re intentionally choosing that word for specific reasons.?

The point is, no one knows why I add a rocket ship emoji to every post (until I, um, WRITE A WHOLE ARTICLE ABOUT IT), but I know.

The act of removing it so as not to appear machine-like would—oddly—make me more machine-like.

Because in doing that, I’d be losing something. Something that’s arguably more important than how the post is perceived or understood.?

I’d be losing the personal significance behind the graphic—a sort of meaning-making that is, at least for now, uniquely human.

That's why this rocket ship enthusiast ain't giving up his go-to emoji anytime soon.

All I ask is that you spare a thought for my fellow advocates and me before consigning our posts to the pile marked AI bumpf.

After all, there may be a whole lot of humanness contained in that lil' ship.

WOOF!

P.S. I’m actually thinking of starting a campaign called #RECLAIMTHEROCKET. Who's with me?

P.P.S. Thanks for reading. Feel free to like and subscribe for more.