centaur

noun

1. (Greek)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.
2. (also, capitalized)One of a number of icy planetoids that orbit the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune.
3. A chess-playing team comprising a human player and a computer who work together.

   “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.”

4. (broadly)A human and an AI who work together.

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “A centaur goes in circles if the human half doesn’t know what it’s doing. That’s where the panic over pedagogy comes in.”

5. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of centaur.

name

1. The constellation and zodiacal sign Sagittarius.

   “The Centaure, the horn'd goatfiſh Capricorne, The ſnake-heard [sic] Gorgon, and fierce Sagittar.”

   “He picked up the ancient book of magic. ‘The Sign of the Centaur. Half man, half horse. Where shall I find it?’”