English language pushes everyone - even AI chatbots - to improve by adding

Image credit: Pixabay A linguistic bias in the English language leads us to 'improve' things by adding to them, a new study reveals. A linguistic bias in the English language that leads us to 'improve' things by adding to them, rather than taking away, is so common that it is even ingrained in AI chatbots, a new study reveals. Language related to the concept of 'improvement' is more closely aligned with addition, rather than subtraction. This can lead us to make decisions which can overcomplicate things we are trying to make better. The study is published today (Monday 3 April) in Cognitive Science , by an international research team from the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Potsdam, and Northumbria University. Dr Bodo Winter, Associate Professor in Cognitive Linguistics at the University of Birmingham said: "Our study builds on existing research which has shown that when people seek to make improvements, they generally add things. "We found that the same bias is deeply embedded in the English language.