The AI-powered English dictionary
plural centaurs
(Greek mythology) A mythical beast having a horse's body with a man's head and torso in place of the head and neck of the horse.
(astronomy, also capitalised) An icy planetoid that orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune. examples
(chess) A chess-playing team comprising a human player and a computer who work together. quotations examples
This was not Kasparov's approach. Instead of rejecting the machines, he returned the year after his defeat to Deep Blue with a different kind of chess, which he called ‘Advanced Chess’. Other names for Advanced Chess include ‘cyborg’ and ‘centaur’ chess.
2018, James Bridle, New Dark Age: Technology, Knowledge and the End of the Future, Verso Books, page 159
(by extension, artificial intelligence) A human and an AI who work together. quotations examples
The first—termed “cyborgs” by the authors—intertwined with the AI, moulding, checking and refining its responses, while the second—“centaurs”—divided labour, handing off more AI-suited subtasks while focussing on their own areas of expertise.
2023 November 11, John Burn-Murdoch, “Generative AI and white-collar jobs: reasons to be wary”, in FT Weekend, The FT View, page 8
Programming has not yet gone the way of chess. But the centaurs have arrived. GPT-4 on its own is, for the moment, a worse programmer than I am. Ben is much worse. But Ben plus GPT-4 is a dangerous thing.
2023 November 13, James Somers, “A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft”, in The New Yorker