DadgogoAI Dictionary

Dictionary entry

stochastic parrot

noun \stə-ˈkas-tik ˈper-ət\
TopicCulture & Big Ideas First known use2021 Senses1
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Definition of stochastic parrot

  1. : a critical description of a language model as something that stitches together plausible text from statistical patterns without any understanding of meaning

    • Critics call chatbots stochastic parrots; supporters say the parrot keeps getting smarter.
    • 'Just a stochastic parrot' is now a phrase in the AI culture wars.

Origin & history

first known use2021

From a 2021 paper by Emily Bender, Timnit Gebru and colleagues on the risks of large language models.

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Related terms

large language model a very large neural network trained on huge amounts of text to predict the next token, which… hallucination a confident but false or made-up statement produced by an AI model, such as an invented fact…

Cite this entry

"Stochastic parrot." AI Dictionary, Dadgogo, https://dadgogo.com/dictionary/stochastic-parrot/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2026.

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