[Ads-l] WOTY watch: "meat proxy"

[Jesse Sheidlower]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned perhaps the most famous and influential example of _meat_ in this context, which is William Gibson's use of _meat puppet_ 'a human' in _Neuromancer_ (1984); Gibson later said that he came up with this use after seeing a (written) reference to the rock band Meat Puppets.

Vastly earlier, there is this remarkable use of _meat person_ 'a human' in L. Frank Baum's 1918 _Tin Woodman of Oz_ (this example was suggested to me by Bill Mullins):

1918 L. F. Baum _Tin Woodman of Oz_ iii. 43
‘Were the Scarecrow and I alone,’ said the Tin Woodman, ‘we would travel by night as well as by day; but with a meat person in our party, we must halt at night to permit him to rest.’

See https://sfdictionary.com/view/2269/meat-puppet for various examples (including the Baum and Weizenbaum ones, in brackets).

HDSF also has _meatspace_ (which Emily mentioned) and _meat world_, both from the early 1990s.

Jesse Sheidlower

On Wed, Aug 26, 2026 at 01:26:45AM -0400, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> Interesting references, Emily and Ben. I received a request to explore
> the following elaborate statement:
> 
> Quote Origin: You’re a Ghost Driving a Meat Coated Skeleton Made from Stardust
> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/10/13/ghost-stardust/
> 
> Here is a sampling of precursor phrases with dates from twitter:
> 
> 2011 Apr 28: I just feel like I’m a ghost in a heavy meat suit
> 2012 Jan 29: im just a brain driving a meat suit around life
> 2012 Jul 30: skeleton wearing a meat-suit
> 2012 Aug 05: people are still basically just skeletons coated in filthy meat
> 2012 Oct 29: Ain’t nothin’ but a ghost driving a meat suit
> 2013 Jan 31: You’re a ghost driving a meat coated skeleton made from
> stardust, what do you have to be scared of?
> 
> Also, there is a famous short story by Terry Bisson titled "They're
> Made Out of Meat" published in OMNI magazine in April 1991."They"
> referred to humans.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They%27re_Made_Out_of_Meat
> 
> For people who hesitate to follow links: Computer scientist Joseph
> Weizenbaum employed the phrase "the brain is merely a meat machine" in
> a May 12, 1972, article in the journal Science. Weizenbaum attributed
> the phrase to "one of my esteemed colleagues." Weizenbaum revealed in
> 2008 that the colleague was Marvin Minsky.
> 
> Garson
> 
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2026 at 12:40 AM Ben Zimmer
> <00001aae0710f4b7-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > I also thought of "meatspace" as well as a couple of other "meat" terms
> > that have come up here:
> >
> > "meatbag" (robot's epithet for a human on "Futurama")
> > https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2009-August/092085.html
> > "meatmobile" (retronym for a human-driven car)
> > https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2016-August/143702.html
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 26, 2026 at 12:35 AM Emily Gordon <
> > 0000205244c4ee9d-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > And a “meat suit” is a human body in early internet (perhaps earlier?)
> > > parlance; “meatspace” is messy real life in a meatsuit in 3D, as opposed to
> > > cyberspace.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Aug 25, 2026 at 9:24 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
> > > 00001aa1be50b751-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > > This use of "meat" was probably influenced by a phrase attributed to
> > > > AI pioneer Marvin Minsky:
> > > >
> > > > Quote Origin: The Brain Is Merely a Meat Machine
> > > > https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/05/06/machines/
> > > >
> > > > Garson
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Aug 25, 2026 at 11:26 PM Ben Zimmer
> > > > <00001aae0710f4b7-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Via "sf-isms: the lexicon of San Francisco tech slang":
> > > > >
> > > > > ---
> > > > > https://sfisms.org/meat-proxy
> > > > >
> > > > > Meat proxy
> > > > >
> > > > > A person who forwards AI-generated text, code, or other output without
> > > > > reading, understanding, or validating it. The person acts only as a
> > > relay
> > > > > between the AI system and the intended recipient.
> > > > >
> > > > > "Please summarize what Claude found instead of making me review a wall
> > > of
> > > > > text from a meat proxy."
> > > > >
> > > > > Origin
> > > > > The earliest matching use located was an anonymous March 31, 2026 blog
> > > > post
> > > > > titled "meat-based llm proxies." It described people who feed messages
> > > to
> > > > > an LLM and copy its responses back to others, saying that the recipient
> > > > was
> > > > > effectively communicating with the model "via a meat proxy."
> > > > >
> > > > > Niklas Gruhn popularized the shorter label with his August 3, 2026
> > > essay
> > > > > "Don't be a meat proxy," focused on unread Claude output in Slack, pull
> > > > > requests, and group chats. Simon Willison amplified it the same day,
> > > and
> > > > > Gruhn's post subsequently reached the Hacker News front page with more
> > > > than
> > > > > 1,800 points and 700 comments. The phrase then spread widely on X,
> > > > > including a viral post by Josh tried coding that received roughly 4,000
> > > > > likes and 490,000 views.
> > > > > ---
> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org