There are two sides to every story, and we often only see one. Everyone has seen slop: low-quality content generated by AI, without care or love. But what about the opposite, kino? Kino means exceptional content, with the added new meaning of content created by (or with the help of) AI.
New words come more often from fear than from ambition. That happened with clanker, and it happened with slop. Slop already has an Irish word: dríodar — the stuff that sinks to the bottom.
Irish has been well protected from dríodar so far. You have to love the language to make anything in it. That keeps the dríodar out: the content that fills English-language social media. AI still can't work well through Irish yet. And we fear the day when that changes: what will become of Irish in the age of AI? Will we be drowned in dríodar? Will every job be done by AI? We have no imagination if we're in low spirits over questions like these.
Because, at the same time, amazing things are happening. Kneecap are filling concert halls around the world. ABAIR, ADAPT, and other groups are giving new power to the language through speech technology and language processing. Irish-language films are winning awards. This is the second revival, and this time the digital world is our top priority. If we utilise AI's power through the medium of Irish, we can achieve sovereignty for the language in this new age.
And yet, we don't have a single word for any of this. If you can only name the disease, how do you imagine the cure? Without a word for the good things already happening, the whole conversation will be full of fear forever.
I want to change the conversation, and it starts with s.
Irish has a beautiful pattern. Words that start with d and s are opposites. Donas is bad luck; sonas is good luck. Daoi is a fool; saoi is a master artist. Dólás is grief; sólás is comfort. The pattern is old, woven into the sounds of the language: d is hard and heavy; s is light and smooth.
So: dríodar — the bad thing.
But what do you call the good thing✨?
sríodar >> dríodar
Sríodar.
A new word for the new age we live in. Dríodar is what is made without love. Sríodar is what happens when people and machines work together with care and love. And more and more sríodar becomes possible when we let go of our fear of AI.
This is no longer the question: will AI affect the future of Irish? It will. This is the new question to be answered:
Dríodar, or sríodar?