‘Trembling with fear’ — Phrase of the Week
China's tech firms are nervous about ChatGPT. And their employees are trembling with fear about AI taking their jobs.
Our Phrase of the Week is: Trembling with fear (瑟瑟发抖 sèsè fādǒu).
The context
ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by U.S. artificial intelligence company OpenAI, has gone viral on Chinese social media over the last two weeks. The powerful tool has taken internet users aback with its human-like responses to written questions, and many have compared its replies with that of a normal person.
The chatbot’s impressive capabilities have also triggered many Chinese people to ask why China’s tech firms seem to be lagging behind Western AI innovators.
This month, two of China’s biggest tech firms finally responded. Baidu, China’s main internet search platform, announced it was launching an equivalent to ChatGPT, the Ernie Bot (文心一言 wén xīn yī yán). Internet security firm Qihoo 360 also announced it was testing its own version of ChatGPT.
Now discussions in China have shifted to how AI will affect people’s lives, particularly their jobs.
ChatGPT, Ernie Bot, and other AI tools will be competing with humans for jobs in the future, according to one article that has been circulating on Chinese tech websites:
ChatGPT has exploded in popularity. This has drawn attention to AI from all sectors, and also made many workers tremble with fear.
聊天机器人ChatGPT爆火，引发各界对人工智能（AI）概念关注讨论的同时，也令不少打工人“瑟瑟发抖”。
Liáotiān jīqìrén ChatGPT bào huǒ, yǐnfā gèjiè duì réngōng zhìnéng (AI) gàiniàn guānzhù tǎolùn de tóngshí, yě lìng bùshǎo dǎgōngrén “sèsè fādǒu.”
And with that, we have our Phrase of the Week.
What it means
Trembling with fear (瑟瑟发抖 sèsè fādǒu) is a common Chinese phrase. Although four characters in length, it’s not an idiom, and doesn’t have a backstory.
It’s an onomatopoeia: The first two characters are 瑟瑟 sèsè, which sounds like rustling, and translates as “shivering”; the last two characters are 发抖 fādǒu, which means “shaking.”
A metaphor for “trembling uncontrollably,” the phrase originally described someone who is shivering because of the cold. But in contemporary Chinese, it has become popular internet slang and a meme.
The phrase still means “trembling,” but it has nothing to do with the temperature. Instead, it comes from the fear of being outwitted, outdone, or overwhelmed by someone who is much more powerful. It’s an over-the-top emotional reaction to being out of one’s depth.
The original phrase, which became an internet meme, is 萌新瑟瑟发抖 méngxīn sèsè fādǒu, which means:
A fresh newcomer who faces a big boss will of course tremble with fear.
萌萌的新人萌新面对大佬，在大佬的威严下，当然会瑟瑟发抖。
Méngméng de xīnrén méngxīn miànduì dàlǎo, zài dàlǎo de wēiyán xià, dāngrán huì sèsè fādǒu.
As well as being a popular four-character phrase and internet meme, it’s also commonly used online as the acronym SSFD. For example:
When the boss comes online, I get so nervous.
大老板上线让我SSFD。
Dà lǎobǎn shàngxiàn ràng wǒ SSFD.
In the context of how Chinese workers feel about ChatGPT, like the original internet meme, they are facing an opponent who is much more powerful than them: An AI that may take their jobs.
So of course they are trembling with fear!
