worth clarifying "chat" is actually (linguistically) completely separate from a shorthand for ChatGPT. Livestreamers (e.g. on twitch/youtube) often talk to "chat", the people watching. Visually, they're just narrating actions etc to a 3rd party who is not present.
This has leaked into (some) younger people's vocabulary. A particular example is saying "Chat is this real?"
Ha, I have a 16 year old who yells "chat" often enough when online gaming to be familiar with that use.
I'm positive these students did use an LLM to get the help instead of crowdsourcing, but it is an interesting linguistic overlap.
And while I'm on my "old man" soapbox -- "look it up" and "search for it" somehow became "search it up" with the young people. I corrected my son for years before I started hearing college students also saying it that way...
> "look it up" and "search for it" somehow became "search it up" with the young people
It wouldn't actually be necessary for the phrase "look it up" to exist for this to happen. You're free to apply the particle "up" to pretty much any English verb if you want the semantics that it provides. Compare rustle up, turn up, etc.
You might also want to take note of the episode of Kim Possible where Ron is unsatisfied with the performance of an actor studying to play him, and tells the actor to "Ron it up".
Not entirely sure what your point is, but if you're implying that kids don't use "chat" to refer to any LLM (usually ChatGPT) then that's very wrong. It doesn't have anything to do with the usage of "chat" you described.
I don’t think this is right. Certainly one usage of “chat” is the livestream version, as you describe, but both Gen Z and Boomers use “chat” to refer to AI tools specifically
This has leaked into (some) younger people's vocabulary. A particular example is saying "Chat is this real?"
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/chat-is-this-real
but some people use it more freely.