How EpochLex builds an entry

Notice a candidate term

Terms can surface in research papers, technical documentation, product interfaces, workplaces, standards, news, online communities, or everyday conversations about AI.

Confirm that people actually use it

EpochLex is not a collection of phrases an AI model can invent on demand. A candidate should have documented real-world usage. The evidence may look different for technical vocabulary, emerging slang, or governance language, but there should be a reason to believe the term exists outside the dictionary.

Decide whether it deserves its own entry

Not every phrase near AI needs a page. EpochLex asks whether the concept is distinct enough to look up, whether it is better treated as an alias, and whether adding it will genuinely help a reader understand AI-era language.

Build a publishable dictionary entry

Before publication, the core entry must be useful on its own. EpochLex requires a clear, human-reviewed definition, natural example, pronunciation, category information, aliases when useful, and a status that helps show whether the language is technical, established, emerging, slang, contested, or otherwise notable.

This is the publication threshold for the dictionary itself. It is separate from whether the deeper history and provenance research has been completed.

Research the provenance

Knowing what a term means is not the same as knowing where it came from. A source can explain a concept well without proving who coined its name or when the phrase first appeared.

EpochLex therefore researches meaning and history separately. When the evidence supports it, an entry may document a naming event, an early use, a person or organization associated with the term, important moments in its development, and sources that support those claims.

A published entry may still show its provenance research as pending while this deeper work is underway.

Use careful language when history is uncertain

Some terms have clean origin stories. Many do not. EpochLex would rather leave an earliest-use field unresolved than invent precision. Words such as coined, introduced, formalized, and popularized are not interchangeable, so the wording should match the evidence.

Connect it to related ideas

Related terms help readers continue exploring. EpochLex can surface direct and reciprocal connections, but it does not invent relationship labels that the underlying research does not support.

Keep a human in the review loop

AI may assist with discovering terms, finding possible sources, organizing research, drafting language, and maintaining the software. AI output is not treated as a source, and AI does not independently decide what gets published.

Human review is responsible for inclusion, source judgment, final wording, classifications, provenance claims, and publication.

Publish it as part of a living dictionary

Once the core dictionary entry passes publication review, it receives a dedicated page and becomes discoverable through search, A-Z browsing, categories, and related-term navigation. Its research status makes clear whether the provenance review is still pending or has received an initial human-reviewed sourcing pass.

Publication is not the end of the entry's life. Meanings, statuses, sources, and historical understanding can change as language and evidence change.