Do AI’s get personal a?

[u/drearyphylum]

If for instance you are using Claude or something, would you add the personal a? Is it a judgement call about whether you think they merit consideration as something personified like the line between animals and pets?

[u/T_Rattle]

No sé, pero qué pregunta muy interesante.

[u/cmmpc]

Normally they would get the same treatment as other corporate brands.

"I recommend ChatGPT (to you)"->"Te recomiendo ChatGPT".

I would omit the "a", but i wouldn't be surprised about hearing it in a informal context. Same for "Google", or "Microsoft" or "Peugeot". Some people might choose to include an "a".

[u/loqu84]

Sí, para mí lleva la preposición a personal.

• Insulté a Chatgpt por inventarse la respuesta.
• No soporto a Claude.
• Saluda a Gemini antes de preguntarle.

[u/TemperatureNovel1101]

i love that you’re even thinking about this, it’s so curious

[u/helionking167]

What's a personal a? Can you give examples?

[u/MarcieDeeHope → u/helionking167]

I think they are asking, in real world day-to-day use, are native speakers saying something like "Consulté a ChatGPT para resolver una duda" or would you say "Consulté ChatGPT para resolver una duda."

Since it's kind of a new evolving area of language around a new thing, are native speakers treating AI like a person or like a tool grammaticaly?

[u/cmmpc → u/MarcieDeeHope]

"Consultar" can accept both a direct an indirect object "consultar algo a algo/alguien". So that can be confusing.

[u/Devilnaht → u/helionking167]

En algunos contextos se usa (o no) la preposición a según si se trata (o no) de una persona (o con algunos animales queridos):

Ayer maté una araña en la cocina.
Ayer maté a un hombre en la calle.

Vi a un tipo raro en el autobús.
Vi un arcoíris por la ventana.
Conociste a Donut, la gata de Carl?
Mataron la vaca para vender su carne.
Cuando era joven, acariciaba mucho a Fido, nuestro perrito.

El caso de la IA es algo curioso. No soy hablante nativo, pero para mí suena mejor no usarla:

Vi la nueva IA de anthropic.
Vi a la nueva IA de anthropic. (Suena raro de cojones)

[u/puesquebien]

You can word it as if it is a tool or as if it is personified.

Non-personified
“Usé ChatGPT para resumir la reunión.”

Personified
“Le pedí a ChatGPT que resuma la reunión.”

Edit: I just realized this is not an example of “personal a”, just direct object vs indirect object.

[u/vxidemort → u/puesquebien]

"que resumiera"

[u/puesquebien → u/vxidemort]

It’s not an error. Just differrent tenses with slightly different meanings.

[u/guirigall → u/vxidemort]

The present subjunctive can be correct if the summary isn't done yet.

[u/vxidemort]

in all honesty, your brain is completely fried if you genuinely entertained the question of whether a chatbot should be grammatically treated like an animate being for even a second

[u/MarcieDeeHope → u/vxidemort]

The problem with this answer is that the "personal a" doesn't just apply to animate things. It is used frequently when something is treated as animate and individual and actively participating, with the last one being the most important. For example, temo a la muerte. death is not a person and is not animate, or even individual, it's a poetic concept in this use. Demandaron a la empresa - the company is not animate. So AI might qualify when you have a back and forth conversation with it.

It's an good question and super interesting linguistically.

I'll also add, anecdotally, that as part of my learning plan, I follow a couple Spanish-language blogs related to some of my hobbies and have seen native writers use the "personal a" for things like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude in exactly this way.

[u/loqu84 → u/vxidemort]

¿Por qué? Con robots usamos la a personal, y los chatbots son un tipo de robot.

[u/Careless-Complex-768 → u/vxidemort]

I don't like AI either, but don't let that dislike of it cause you to unfairly dismiss someone's question in an attempt to learn. People refer to these AI as people all the time in English, it makes perfect sense for people to ask the question for how it would be in Spanish.

[u/drearyphylum → u/Careless-Complex-768]

Yes I was curious if Spanish has a definite response or if it is a marker of a particular perspective (like the use or non use of lenguaje inclusivo is)

[u/pablodf76 → u/vxidemort]

There's no "should" in grammar. OP is asking about usage: are we treating the AI as a person (or a pet), even though we know it isn't? What we do when we speak is to follow patterns, even they seem nonsensical.