Classic case of the algorithmic-hit-and-run. Create problems. Turn it off/update. Get out of jail. Every time. Sadly, we've set up a system that incentivizes that. This is where the Algorithmic Imprint becomes powerful bc the harms from these systems persist even after they are no longer there.

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 10h ago

This whole story is infurating, but this first quote from someone at OpenAI is really making me see red. "The newer version won't do this": a) why the fuck should we believe you and b) even if so, that has fuck-all to do with OpenAI's culpability here. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/w...

A reminder, because it is almost that time of year: More children are killed by cars on Halloween than any other day of the year, by far. www.vox.com/future-perfe... If you're a parent, I hope you'll do what you can to keep kids safe. If you're driving on Saturday, PLEASE exercise extra caution.

Also weirdly curious if this is a failure of media training for this spokesperson or in fact the result of OpenAI's media training...

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 10h ago

This whole story is infurating, but this first quote from someone at OpenAI is really making me see red. "The newer version won't do this": a) why the fuck should we believe you and b) even if so, that has fuck-all to do with OpenAI's culpability here. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/w...

This whole story is infurating, but this first quote from someone at OpenAI is really making me see red. "The newer version won't do this": a) why the fuck should we believe you and b) even if so, that has fuck-all to do with OpenAI's culpability here. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/w...

As a mathematician who refuses to use AI, I get asked "but what if AI cures cancer?" Answers 1) AI has so far murdered and harmed an incredible nu,ber of people in a variety of ways 2) cancer isn't one disease, progress is incremental 3) if my gran had wheels she would have been a tram

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 14h ago

It's interesting how the tech press hasn't asked and directly addressed the question of why OpenAI et al are doing things like "proving math theorems" rather than "speeding up solving cancer" because I don't think anyone would be mad if an LLM somehow did that and made the answer available for free

This point from @emilymbender.bsky.social surfaces something that’s been nagging at me: the “stochastic parrot” phrase seems to mostly be used by people trying to say it’s *not* an appropriate term. Why? Why does the term live rent-free in their minds?

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · yesterday

I haven't looked deeply at every case, but the overall gestalt is that this remark tends to come from people who are deeply committed to the idea/ideology of "AI" as something all-powerful that will either solve all of our problems or kill us all. >>

"AI can draft an essay for you, especially if you give it a high quality prompt." Really? This is what MIT thinks high schoolers should learn? MIT's "Day of AI" dayofai.org provides materials for K-12 teachers and claims to have reached over 5,000,000 students to date. 1/2

I guess my point here is, that's on them, not on me. When I coined this phrase, I could see that I was dealing with hype (even in late 2020) and general lack of understanding of how language works & how we work with language. I didn't know I'd be dealing with a cult. /fin

So in the face of a short, catchy phrase that undermines all of that, they are angry. www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-two-wo... >>

The two words the AI industry hates more than anything

I talk with computational linguist Emily M. Bender, co-author of the influential 2021 “stochastic parrots” paper, about why AI industry leaders can’t stop seething over the term.

bloodinthemachine.com

My standing search on the phrase "stochastic parrots" regularly turns up people labeling it a "thought-terminating cliché". I think maybe they're right, but not the way the think they are: >>

Thinking about the argument from convenience for LLMs & related technologies in the context of a paper I'm working on. And how people might say, "Without [software], it would take to long to ___" My usual reaction to this has been: What did you do four years ago? >>

Practicing my blocking skillz --- today's target: Rando on the internet who thought he had a good suggestion for what should go into a paper I obliquely referenced.

the idea of some random guy making his chatbot write a press release about how his chatbot is a bad employee then emailing it to a bunch of journalists is still cracking me up, it’s so good. I really liked this one

Jason Koebler@jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 2d ago

The wildest one of these I got was a three PDF "press release" rollout from someone who said his ChatGPT sometimes got something wrong and that OpenAI didn't respond to his support ticket and fashioned himself as a kind of big tech whistleblower

Thinking about the argument from convenience for LLMs & related technologies in the context of a paper I'm working on. And how people might say, "Without [software], it would take to long to ___" My usual reaction to this has been: What did you do four years ago? >>

My standing search on the phrase "stochastic parrots" regularly turns up people labeling it a "thought-terminating cliché". I think maybe they're right, but not the way the think they are: >>

I think the idea of automated peer review rests on both wishful thinking about "AI" systems (gimme those magic beans) and a misunderstanding of what we're doing when we review papers. >>

So in the end, it doesn't matter what kinds of experiments people do comparing review-shaped objects extruded from LLMs to actual reviews written by people. Comparing them is and always will be a category error. >>

There are no magic beans, and any scientific community that behaves as if there were ... isn't doing science anymore. /fin

But notice that none of the above use cases involve chucking the manuscript into an automated system and asking for any evaluation of it, nor "draft a review for me", nor "check this paper for correctness". Because that's not how peer review (nor science) works! bsky.app/profile/emil... >>

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 4d ago

"I understand that there have been some experiments showing that LLM review may have similar outcomes to human peer review, but who cares? Either scholarship, research and publishing are human enterprises or they aren’t." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu... >>

While we're wishing, can I also have world peace, an immediate end to the climate crisis, a teleportation machine, two extra hours in every day and an endless supply of dark chocolate? >>

It seems like the #nlproc community is overdue for a conversation about how we should and shouldn't use text processing in reviewing, and also, I guess, what peer review & science even are. #emnlp2026 , 🧵>>

Maria Antoniak@mariaa.bsky.social · 3d ago

A dataset of the responses will hopefully be coming soon. Summary of the results:

It seems like the #nlproc community is overdue for a conversation about how we should and shouldn't use text processing in reviewing, and also, I guess, what peer review & science even are. #emnlp2026 , 🧵>>

Maria Antoniak@mariaa.bsky.social · 3d ago

A dataset of the responses will hopefully be coming soon. Summary of the results:

Really enjoyed this ep of @techpolicypress.bsky.social 's The Sunday Show with @alondra.bsky.social , Emily Tucker and @justinhendrix.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/the-edge-dia... >>

The Edge Dialogues with Dr. Alondra Nelson

The first in a series of events on ideas upstream of policy hosted by Tech Policy Press and the Privacy Center at Georgetown Law.

techpolicy.press

Rain delay! We'll be doing this at a later date -- stay tuned.

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 4d ago

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 goes to the game! @alexhanna.bsky.social and I are super excited to welcome @shireenahmed.bsky.social to discuss “AI” in sports. Note special time: Monday, Oct 26, 11am Pacific twitch.tv/dair_institute

Imagine an algorithm that can accurately assess what every citizen thinks on a particular matter of policy. Instead of having elections, we just run the algorithm. Is this democracy? Or does democracy require the actual sharing of power by everyone - apart from what those members think

I used to be pretty slow with the block button, largely because I don't want to curtail my own reach, but recently I've been getting enough hostile QTs that put my words in front of various TESCREAL cult-members and the responses are getting tedious. So, blocking it is!

"ai" discourse exploits our social patterns. we don't owe polite consideration to people who are rudely barging into every private space at once you don't need to grant the premise that it's good for something somewhere to say that it's bad here in front of you

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 4d ago

I'm hoping it's #1, and also that as time goes on, more people will feel comfortable being out, open, and leadership providing LLM/"AI" haters. Like @aclanthology.org anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

I know it's rude to do so, so I won't, but it is SOOO tempting to put the anonymous, low-follower accounts that pop up in my mentions to say "nuh-uh! LLMs *are* useful" on blast. >>

"I understand that there have been some experiments showing that LLM review may have similar outcomes to human peer review, but who cares? Either scholarship, research and publishing are human enterprises or they aren’t." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu... >>

Generative AI Is Not Our Peer

Automation can make many good things possible, but let’s not pretend it’s something it isn’t.

insidehighered.com

Here's a version without the translation overlay: www.youtube.com/live/xpFdl2U...

Hacking Big Tech

YouTube video by Mediapart

youtube.com