What's in a Name

Annamaria on Monday

I have commented a few times here on MIE my doubts about AI.  To my way of thinking, the very wealthy and powerful creators are pushing far too hard on its adoption without properly considering the downstream risks.  They seem to carelessly brush aside all doubts.  They sweep the naysayers under the rug.  They respond, "That will never happen," without any useful explanation of what they are doing to prevent possible disasters.  In some cases, it seems as if they never try for a moment to ask themselves what could go wrong.  Not even in situations where doing so would be easy and quick: for instance the names they give their organizations. 

We writers of fiction carefully choose the names of our characters, because we know that given names influence what kind of person - real or fictional - the bearer becomes.  I am sure that if I named the heroine in my Africa series Valentina instead of Vera, she would have turned out to be altogether different.  This is true of all names.  Even of corporations.  Years ago, when two of my clients, Chase and Chemical banks merged, many of the people in the top executive jobs were from Chemical, but they called the resultant organization Chase.  Obviously to anyone, the better choice.

     Here are two examples of what look to me like mistakes made by AI companies when naming their organizations. I hope you will find this amusing.  You may even think I am being silly to bring them up. But I do worry about the lack of attention when it comes to the simpler task of choosing a name.  If they aren't looking carefully at that, wha else are they missing?

Some of the AI pushers fail to consider the way their corporate name will be received when spoken, rather then seen on the screen.  Before I ever saw these two, I heard them advertised on WNYC, my beloved public radio station.  

One, which I have been hearing on the radio station every morning is called Odoo.  Perhaps, in the language of the creators, Odoo is a complimentary term. But every time I hear it said aloud, I imagine employees who will be using the app saying, "Odoo is doo-doo. Now that I have seen it on the screen, it does not look so bad.  but did the developers test the name with people who would hear and speak it?  If they asked for feedback, surely someone would have pointed out that it rhymes with doo-doo.

The same question goes for Claude Ai.  On the screen it is fine, but when I hear it being advertised on the radio, I hear "clawed."  "Want AI so you can be more productive? Buy our product and get clawed!"

My general concern here is that AI creators and pushers don't seem to understand the importance of doubt in decision making.  They ought to be working hard to figure out what could go wrong and what needs to be done to avoid it.  That they approach their work without any doubts is dangerous.