KMi’s Dr Nancy Pontika, has worked alongside project co-leads Professor Mirjam Hauck, Academic Lead for AI in Learning, Teaching and Assessment, and Eleanor Moore, Senior Learning Designer, on Better Words for AI, an Open University project exploring how the language used to describe AI shapes understanding and participation.
Terms such as intelligence, learning, memory and hallucination can be ambiguous, anthropomorphic or hype-driven. The project brought students and staff together as partners to examine this terminology and co-create clearer, more accessible and inclusive explanations.
The result is OurAIwords, a collaborative and openly available lexicon for students, staff and the wider public. It provides plain-language explanations, highlights common misunderstandings and encourages people to question the assumptions carried by the words used to describe AI.
OurAIwords is designed to evolve through community contributions, emerging technologies and new understandings. Users are invited to explore the lexicon, suggest new terms and help shape clearer and more critically informed conversations about AI.
Explore OurAIwords: https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/course/view.php?id=20609
The Better Words for AI project was funded and supported by The Open University’s Centre for Scholarship and Innovation in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education, Languages and Sport. Project reference: Praxis252608 MHEM.