skill
A skill is something a person learns and gets good at through practice. People talk about job skills, social skills, or life skills like cooking or driving.
What a model may hear
- voice app extension Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant
- treat it as a third-party module that handles voice commands and may need invocation by name
- ML model capability machine learning research
- assume a benchmarkable task the model can be fine-tuned or evaluated on
- game ability or talent tree node RPGs and game design
- read it as a unlockable player power with cooldowns, levels, or prerequisites
- skill-based routing call centers and customer service software
- route a request to an agent tagged with matching expertise
Where people and models part ways
“I want to build a skill”
Meant: the person wants to learn something new
May be taken as: the model assumes they want to code an Alexa skill or game ability
Say instead: “I want to learn a new ability”
“What skills do you have?”
Meant: the person wants to know what the model can help with
May be taken as: the model lists technical capabilities or pretends to have software plugin features it does not have
Say instead: “What kinds of tasks can you help me with?”
“Rate my skills”
Meant: the person wants feedback on their abilities
May be taken as: the model assumes a request for automated scoring of a machine learning benchmark
Say instead: “Give me feedback on how good I am at this”
“Add this skill”
Meant: the person wants to note something they learned
May be taken as: the model tries to install a plugin or modify a configuration it cannot access
Say instead: “Help me list something I learned”
Tips
- Say 'learn' or 'practice' instead of 'skill' when you mean human learning
- Say 'Alexa skill' or 'voice app' if you mean the Amazon platform
- Say 'capability' or 'feature' if you want to know what the model can do
- Say 'ability' or 'power' if you are talking about games
- Avoid 'skill' as a verb; say 'get better at' instead
Often confused with
- ability
- broader, less tied to learned practice
- talent
- implies natural gift, not trained
- expertise
- deeper, more formal mastery
- competency
- workplace assessment jargon
- feat
- one-time achievement, not ongoing capacity
- plugin
- software add-on, not human knowledge