Question
Updated on
27 Mar 2016
- Korean
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English (US)
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English (UK)
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Japanese
Question about English (US)
In what contexts does a person respond to a question "Positive.", "Negative." or "Affirmitive."? I mean, they could've simply just said Yes/No. I've seen AI machines often answering their masters' question that way in several sci-fi movies.
In what contexts does a person respond to a question "Positive.", "Negative." or "Affirmitive."? I mean, they could've simply just said Yes/No. I've seen AI machines often answering their masters' question that way in several sci-fi movies.
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- English (US)
No one answers "positive," or "negative" in regular conversation to a yes/no question. The only time I can think of that somebody would say "affirmative," would be in the military when a higher up asks a question that's true. I don't know why computers in sci-fi movies say that but it's just one of those random cases where you just have to realize what it means.
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- German
I think they use it, because they are AI. Machines are built to be perfect, to be better than humans. This kind of answer is not very emotional. And I think this way of speach is used to make clear, that this "person" is a robot, android, machine or whatever you want it to call. Just think about very old movies, they had to find a way to describe some kind of AI or robot. Speach is a strong medium to transfer things.
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- English (US)
affirmative/negative are really only used in the military so as to not confuse them with other words (which could easily happen with yes/no), positive is used to really confirm something if you have doubts for example "Do you want a cookie" "no" "Are you positive?" "Yes, I'm positive"
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- English (US)
Also, it's easier to mistake the words yes and no since they're so short. So, if you want to make sure someone knows your response, you would say "affirmative" "confirmed" "correct" "negative"
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- Korean
You are amazing!! Now I totally understand what those words mean and what they feel like. Thank all of you!!
- German
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