[user_7832]

I just wanted to thank you for the medium article you posted. I was online when Paul made that bizarre “delve” tweet but never knew so much about Nigeria and its English. As someone from a former British colony too I understood why using such a word was perfectly normal but wasn’t aware Kenyans and Nigerians trained ChatGPT.

[bossyTeacher]

It wasn't bizarre, it was ignorant if not borderline racist. He is telling native English speakers from non-anglosaxon countries that their English isn't normal

[DiscourseFan]

It's not normal, that's why its interesting.

A few things on that article, though:

1: If non-native english speakers were training ChatGPT, then of course non-native English essays would be flagged as AI generated! It's not their fault, its ours for thinking that exploited labor with a slick facade was magical machine intelligence.

2: These tools are widely used in the developing world since fluent english is a sign of education and class and opens doors for you socially and economically; why would Nigerians use such ornate english if it didn't come from a competition to show who can speak the language of the colonizer best?

3: It's undeniable that the ones responding to Paul Graham completely missed the point. Regardless of who uses what words when, the vast majority of papers, until ChatGPT was released, did not use the word "delve," and the incidence of that word in papers increased 10-fold after. Yes, its possible that the author used "delve" intentionally, but its statistically unlikely (especially since ChatGPT used "delve" in most of its responses). A small group of English speakers, who don't predominantly interact with VCs in Silicon Valley, do not make a difference in this judgement--even if there are a lot of Englishes, the only English that most people in the business world deal with is American, European, and South Asian. Compared to the English speakers of those regions, Nigeria is a small fraction.

If Paul Graham was dealing predominantly with Nigerians in his work, he probably would not have made that tweet in the first place.

[bossyTeacher]

Those variants of English are not normal in the same way that american english (or any non British English variant) is not normal. Just because it is not familiar to you does not make it not normal.

1. But the trainers are native speakers of English!

2. The same applies to the developed non-English speaking world

Let me change Nigerians with Americans in your text: 'why would Americans use such different english if it didn't come from a competition to show who can speak the language of the colonizer best? Things like calling autumn fall or changing suffixes you won't find in British English.'. Hopefully you can you see how racist your text sounds.

3. Usage by non-Nigerians is not normal, yes. But in that context saying that its usage is not normal is racist imo. It's like a Brit saying that the usage of "colour" or other American English words was not normal because they are not words used by Brits.

Surely, "the only English that most people in the business world deal with is American". Unless you are taking about more than one variant of English. Also, I found it curious that you didn't say original english or british english as opposed to european english. And yes, adding South Asia to any list of countries and comparing it to any other country besides china or us will make that other country look small. You can use that trick with any other country not just Nigeria.

I do agree with you that its usage by non-Nigerians in a textual context gives plenty of grounds to suspect that it is AI generated. Similarly, one could expect similar from using X variant of English by people that didn't grow up using that variant. As in, Brit students using American English words in their essays or American students using British English words in their essays.

But Paul was being stubborn and borderline racist in those tweets just because he was partially right

There is this thing in social media that when figures of authority might be caught in a situation where they might need to retract, they don't because of ego

[DiscourseFan]

I cannot tell the difference between an essay written by a British student vs an American one in terms of word choice in the main, since at least in writing they are remarkably similar, whereas Nigerian English differs dramatically from both in its everyday lexicon, which is the entire point of the article: a difference such as colour/color would not make it worth even a comment.

If you think its racist you're going to have to claim that all those uses of "delve" in academic papers is also due to Nigerians academics massively increasing their research output just as frequently. Or, it's more likely that its AI generated content. It's a non sequitur. "Oh my god, scammers always send me emails claiming to be Nigerian princes--that's how you know it's bullshit." "Ah, but what if they're actually a Nigerian prince? Didn't consider that, I guess you must be racist then lmao." Ratio war ensues. Thank god we're not on twitter where calling people out for "racism" doesn't get you any points, where you can't get any clout for going on a moral crusade.