Emily M. Bender
@emilymbender.bsky.social
Book: https://thecon.ai Web: https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender
In my inbox this morning is a message from someone saying that they "selected me" to provide feedback on their manuscript and then proceeding to describe the ms like this: >>
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, ep 82 www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis... … in which @savasavasava.myatproto.social joins @alexhanna.bsky.social and me for a good hard look at “harm reduction” as misapplied to “AI”.
Well that's infuriating. If I'm listening to an audiobook, it's because I want to read that book, not some papier-mâché of that book plus whatever else was in the training data.
@frumbly.bsky.social · 21h agoGoogle are stuffing AI bollocks in their Google Play Books app with "Book Insights". AI summaries - DON'T! WANT! If authors want to block this for their books, let Google know. Luckily, it hasn't turned up in my copy of "The AI Con" ... Yet? So @emilymbender.bsky.social can breathe easy for now.
In my inbox this morning is a message from someone saying that they "selected me" to provide feedback on their manuscript and then proceeding to describe the ms like this: >>
Tune into the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 live stream @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social take on the latest nonsense: Altman' “singularity”; the Guardian on AI consciousness; OpenAI & Anthropic blame their cybercrimes on “rogue models” Today, noon PT www.twitch.tv/dair_institute
dair_institute - Twitch
Twitch account for The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR).
twitch.tv
Today!
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 5d agoAltman proclaiming the “singularity”; the Guardian publishing blather about possible AI consciousness; OpenAI and Anthropic blaming their cybercrimes on “rogue models”—the nonsense is coming fast and thick. Time for another MAIHT3k livestream with me & @alexhanna.bsky.social: Mon, Aug 3, noon PT
Read Critical AI editor Lauren Goodlad's essay in #Representations new #clusteronAI (2026) 175 (1): 80–110. doi.org/10.1525/rep..... The cluster begins with Goodlad's "We Have Always Been Action Theorists" and includes four interdisciplinary responses.
We Have Always Been Action TheoristsToward a Critical Theory of Language for the Era of “Large Language Models”
Scholars of literature and culture understandably place themselves among the world’s premiere experts on matters of language. But they also know that fields like linguistics and communication have the...
doi.org
Join us tomorrow!
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 5d agoAltman proclaiming the “singularity”; the Guardian publishing blather about possible AI consciousness; OpenAI and Anthropic blaming their cybercrimes on “rogue models”—the nonsense is coming fast and thick. Time for another MAIHT3k livestream with me & @alexhanna.bsky.social: Mon, Aug 3, noon PT
Altman proclaiming the “singularity”; the Guardian publishing blather about possible AI consciousness; OpenAI and Anthropic blaming their cybercrimes on “rogue models”—the nonsense is coming fast and thick. Time for another MAIHT3k livestream with me & @alexhanna.bsky.social: Mon, Aug 3, noon PT
dair_institute - Twitch
Twitch account for The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR).
twitch.tv
AlphaFold was always bait-and-switch; now Google confirms it. A hyper-narrow bioinformatrics model with actual science bolted on whose guesses can be experimentally checked was never a licence for socially-applied slop at scale, but it's done its job. Effort transferred to LLMs.
Altman proclaiming the “singularity”; the Guardian publishing blather about possible AI consciousness; OpenAI and Anthropic blaming their cybercrimes on “rogue models”—the nonsense is coming fast and thick. Time for another MAIHT3k livestream with me & @alexhanna.bsky.social: Mon, Aug 3, noon PT
dair_institute - Twitch
Twitch account for The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR).
twitch.tv
People keep using the "can't put a genie back in the bottle" metaphor for "AI", even though in the stories they always get back in and current "AI" is more of a "we're spending trillions of dollars and the energy output of a continent trying to keep this bastard out of the bottle" situation
New on Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000!: AI boosters want to hand off emergency services to the bullshit generators. @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social take on the latest automated horrors threatening our collective health and safety. Listen here: www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis...
L’autre c’est un MUST pour la critique de l’industrie de l’IA, par @emilymbender.bsky.social et @alexhanna.bsky.social Iels ont un excellent podcast aussi qui est drôle ET informatif. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/m...
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000
Technology Podcast · Updated Monthly · Artificial Intelligence has too much hype. In this podcast, linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna break down the AI hype, separate fact from fictio...
podcasts.apple.com
Now is a good reminder that machine learning is a rebranding of statistical learning. Reinforcement learning is something I first came across in control theory. Many ML formulations are from information theory, a much more theoretically grounded discipline that's been around for decades.
Casey Newton@caseynewton.bsky.social · last wk.There's a reason why "these are just statistical predictions" hasn't caught on in the discourse, and it's not the tech press. It's that people see them reading and writing and reasoning and scheming and they realize that the stochastic-parrots framing is outdated and inadequate to the moment
And if you try to go in and pick off the gold foil or whatever that the company/lab in question has pasted onto that one bit of the greasy, sticky ball, and show it for the thin, undersupported claim that it is, the people you are talking to still imagine that the whole ball is made of gold. >>
BREAKING: Tech reporter on record saying he is swallowing everything the tech companies are saying.
Casey Newton@caseynewton.bsky.social · last wk.There's a reason why "these are just statistical predictions" hasn't caught on in the discourse, and it's not the tech press. It's that people see them reading and writing and reasoning and scheming and they realize that the stochastic-parrots framing is outdated and inadequate to the moment
For many years, people didn’t randomly film others in public—not because we didn’t have the technology, but because the social contract said you didn’t do that. That’s why Meta is going full court press on their PR and celebrity endorsements. They remember how people ran google glass outta town.
Love this new metaphor for AI. It’s basically a katamari. 😅 (Read the full thread)
Katamari Damacy: Rolling Up the City
Alt: Katamari Damacy: Rolling Up the City
static.klipy.com
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2w agoThe shape of this discourse is equal parts fascinating and infuriating. I'm thinking today of the term "AI" as mushing together a wide range of products and services in an enormous, greasy, sticky ball, rolling and bouncing its way through our landscape. >>
Emily Bender gives us language connecting what those who make LLMs take from what belongs to humanity as a whole AND she lays how they're used, *even when deployed solely rhetorically,* to reorganize power, people's lives, and environments. It can be hard to hold all of this in your head. LLMs...
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2w agothey are built out of massive exploitation of people and the environment AND AT THE SAME TIME they are being used (as rhetorical and material technologies) to centralize power, degrade working environments, paper over inequities, amplify systems of oppression etc etc >>
Because I didn’t know, “anthropomorphizing” means “attributing human qualities to non-human things”. Read on, it’s interesting:
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2w agoUnusually for bsky, this has attracted a lot of folks who want to argue (via QTs here and downthread) that the anthropomorphizing language is just fine, actually. Helps people understand clearly. Doesn't obfuscate responsibility. And/or is a more accurate portrayal of what the models are doing. >>
“some people say that reporters are doing malpractice by just repeating cynical marketing ploy but reporting says that this absolutely wasn’t a cynical marketing ploy, says journalist” is hilarious though, it’s something someone would say who is really committed to doing zero introspection.
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2w agoThis is laughable --- "reporting says", well yes, these reporters did a bang-up job anthropomorphizing the system they are talking about, and obfuscating the responsibility that OpenAI holds here. bsky.app/profile/mims... Some examples:
The shape of this discourse is equal parts fascinating and infuriating. I'm thinking today of the term "AI" as mushing together a wide range of products and services in an enormous, greasy, sticky ball, rolling and bouncing its way through our landscape. >>
Also available as video on PeerTube: peertube.dair-institute.org/w/23g3vAkBsg...
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, Episode 81 - State of Emergency
AI boosters want to hand off emergency services to the bullshit generators. And horrifyingly, some medical professionals want to help them! Join Emily and Alex for a deep dive on the latest automat...
peertube.dair-institute.org
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2w agoOne of my worst speech technology nightmares has been happening right in my own city! In the latest Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, @alexhanna.bsky.social and I dig into it: www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis...
One of my worst speech technology nightmares has been happening right in my own city! In the latest Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, @alexhanna.bsky.social and I dig into it: www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis...
Unusually for bsky, this has attracted a lot of folks who want to argue (via QTs here and downthread) that the anthropomorphizing language is just fine, actually. Helps people understand clearly. Doesn't obfuscate responsibility. And/or is a more accurate portrayal of what the models are doing. >>
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2w agoThis is laughable --- "reporting says", well yes, these reporters did a bang-up job anthropomorphizing the system they are talking about, and obfuscating the responsibility that OpenAI holds here. bsky.app/profile/mims... Some examples: