tl;dr Because of a persistent tendency to associate fluent expression with fluent thought, it is natural – but potentially misleading – to think that if an art

tl;dr Because of a persistent tendency to associate fluent expression with fluent thought, it is natural – but potentially misleading – to think that if an artificial intelligence model can express itself fluently, that means it also thinks and feels just like humans do. A sad irony is that the same cognitive bias that makes people ascribe humanity to GPT-3 can cause them to treat actual humans in inhumane ways. Sociocultural linguistics – the study of language in its social and cultural context – shows that assuming an overly tight link between fluent expression and fluent thinking can lead to bias against people who speak differently. For instance, people with a foreign accent are often perceived as less intelligent and are less likely to get the jobs they are qualified for.