The new addition was one of three potential options chosen by Oxford lexicographers.

Thousands of people managed to get out of ‘goblin mode’ to vote, with the phrase winning by a huge margin – 318,956 votes, 93% of the total. In second place was Metaverse with 14,484 votes, followed by #IStandWith with 8,639 votes

So what exactly does “goblin mode” mean?

According to Oxford University Press, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, it is a slang term often used in phrases such as “I’m in goblin mode” or “to go goblin mode”.

It is further explained as “a type of behavior” that is brazen, presumptuous, lazy, careless, or greedy, usually in a way that rejects social norms or the expectations of those around them.

The term began appearing on the internet in 2009, but went viral early this year due to a fictional headline scandal involving actress and model Julia Fox, as well as a popular Reddit post describing someone behaving like a goblin.

The term gained the most rapid popularity during the pandemic because people fell into goblin mode en masse while confined to their homes all the time, experts considered.

Some sectors continue to experience goblin mode from their employees. According to surveys, IT professionals and a lot of people in the industry continue to work from home, which is the reason for bad and sour mood as well as work not done efficiently. However, the paradox in behavior comes from the fact that most people in the field have no desire to return to their offices, never mind that they already have the opportunity.

Home Office practitioners are more likely to feel tired, run down, in a bad mood, etc. Some also complain of physical problems related to their posture and spine. Goblin mode is the juxtaposition between the problems coming from Home Office and the mood of the people who practice it.

This sparked a campaign to get him elected, with PC Gamer magazine asking its readers to “put aside our petty differences and vote for ‘goblin mode’ instead of ‘metaverse’ as Oxford’s word of the year” because “goblin mode rules”.

It might be hard to argue with that logic when many of us sometimes feel a bit in the way of describing the phrase.

Casper Gratwall, president of Oxford Languages, said people have embraced their inner goblin.

“We had hoped that the public would be happy to participate in the process, but this level of engagement with the campaign has taken us completely by surprise. The strength of the response highlights how important our vocabulary is to understanding who we are and assessing what is happening to the world around us.”,

Add Casper Gratwall

Last year’s word of the year was vax, reflecting the interest in vaccines following the launch of a coronavirus vaccine.

On October 23, 2021 an exhibition presented by the organization Art D’Egypte in partnership with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism, took place at the Great Pyramids of Giza in Cairo, where Ai-Da was a part of the event.

Ai-Da Robot conceived by Aidan Meller. Photo Credits: Frieze

However, are we inclined to associate AI with art or poetry? Well, Ai-Da can create it. She is a highly realistic robot, which was invented by Aidan Mellar in Oxford, central England and she spends most of her time writing poems and creating art.  On Friday she even gave a public performance of poetry she wrote, using her own algorithms in celebration of the great Italian poet Dante.
The event took place at the University of Oxford’s renowned Ashmolean Museum as part of an exhibition marking the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death.

Her poem was inspired and produced as a response to Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’. Ai-Da’s poem was described as “deeply emotive” by her creator Meller and includes the following verse:

“We looked up from our verses like blindfolded captives,

Sent out to seek the light; but it never came

A needle and thread would be necessary

For the completion of the picture.

To view the poor creatures, who were in misery,

That of a hawk, eyes sewn shut.”

According to Mellar, his robot’s ability to imitate human writing is “so great, if you read it you wouldn’t know that it wasn’t written by a human”. He shared that when AZi-Da was reading her poem on Friday evening “it was easy to forget that you’re not dealing with a human being.”

“The Ai-Da project was developed to address the debate over the ethics of further developing AI to imitate humans and human behavior,” Meller told CNN. “It’s finally dawning on us all that technology is having a major impact on all aspects of life and we’re seeking to understand just how much this technology can do and what it can teach us about ourselves.”

Meller said one key thing he and the team that work with Ai-Da have learned while developing her is that the project hasn’t taught them how “human she is — but it’s shown us how robotic we are as humans.” By watching her behaviour, which was based on the way a real human being behaves in their everyday life, even for a second, you can think that the actual robots actually are us.  Meller also commented:

“Through Ai-Da and through the use of AI, we can learn more about ourselves than ever before — Ai-Da allows us to gain a new insight into our own patterns and our own habits, as we see her imitate them right in front of us.

As we mentioned, Ai-Da can also create artworks which is one of the reasons she is so impressive. She made an artwork for the Dante exhibition titled “Eyes Wide Shut”. It was created in response to an incident in Egypt in October – Egyptian security forces wanted to remove the cameras in her eyes because of their concerns over surveillance and security. Mellar said that the incident showed just how much nervousness there is in the world around technology and its advancements.

Her creator is aware of the concerns over the increasingly advanced development of artificial intelligence but he thinks that “technology on its own is benign — it’s those that control it whose intentions could be morally and ethically questionable.”Mellar said:

“The biggest fear we should have should be of ourselves and the human capability to use technology to oppress, not of the AI itself.”

In his opinion Ai-Da can be a pioneer in the world of AI and her productions will push the boundaries of what can be achieved in technology and will help us to learn more about ourselves thanks to the robot’s eyes.