I've been unsettled lately when reading messages and papers. It feels like I'm dissociating. Everything seems a bit alien, even if it's completely human. I've had a realization: When our simulations finally exited the Uncanny Valley, they brought the Uncanny with them.

Life on the Uncanny Precipice | Naomi Saphra

We were wrong about the Uncanny Valley.

nsaphra.net

When utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.

No, it's because only 3.1 percent of the Dutch population live in poverty as opposed to 20 percent of the British population. The Guardian really needs to stop publishing irresponsible lifestyle crap as news. (The Avondvierdaagse is a nice tradition though.) www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Dutch children are unusually happy and healthy. Is it because of the Avondvierdaagse?

Once a year, Dutch kids, parents and teachers take part in a walking festival, heading out for four nights in a single week to explore their neighbourhoods, exercise and make friends. It’s a tradition...

theguardian.com

In 1908 the Lancet called for an 18+ age limit on reading in bed for U.K. children.

Breaking: Under 16s impose social media ban on Government. It’s too much to expect ministers to be able to cope with the extremism and disinformation they encounter on X and Facebook. At their age they’re too easily convinced that immigrants are dangerous and of the need to bring back “real bins”.

As I’ve said before, any serious attempt to ban conversion therapy needs to confront the fact that the NHS has been doing it for decades.

Cal Horton (they/them)@fiercemum.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Update: Young people & families today received shocking & transphobic letters from NHS. These letters tell people that endocrine care (blockers / HRT) is being fully withdrawn in 7 weeks time (July 31st). Forced medical detransition. This country is a danger to trans children & young people.

In film, "we'll fix it in post" is what you say when something went wrong on set and you don't want to redo it. AI research has made it our entire methodology: train the model, then patch whatever comes out. Our new ICML oral argues this can't be the basis of a science of AI. 🧵

I thought I was writing an essay explaining a decision to stop using the em dash — or least use it way less — because of how AI chatbots have appropriated it. Instead, I found myself arguing passionately in favor of it. 😑

Humans vs. Bots — Who Does the Em Dash Better?

nytimes.com

Super excited for our CRAFT workshop on trans AI policy at FAccT, co-organized w @jhereia.bsky.social & @anabrandusescu.bsky.social, come join us if you're at the conference! More details here: programs.sigchi.org/facct/2026/p...

Our statement on the UK gov't's demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the UK be scanned, on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification & content scanning. This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all. signal.org/blog/pdfs/20...

Our call for papers is live!! The 7th Workshop on Gender Bias in NLP will be co-located with AACL and will be remote-only. Deadline for direct submissions is September 2.

Gender Bias in NLP Workshop@genderbiasnlp.bsky.social · 4mo ago

📢 Call for Papers! 📢 Submissions are open for the 7th Workshop on Gender Bias in NLP #GeBNLP, co-located with AACL 2026! 🌐 GeBNLP 2026 will be held in remote-only mode 🗓️ Deadline: September 2, 2026

Like clockwork

Ian Dunt@iandunt.bsky.social · 4mo ago

And then he'll post about it on a website rigged to help Nazis and post non-consensual pornography.

And then he'll post about it on a website rigged to help Nazis and post non-consensual pornography.

Reuters@reuters.com · 4mo ago

UK PM Starmer set to ban 'harmful' social media for under-16s reut.rs/4g13ksk

New on Transponder: Britain has become a dark mirror for trans rights www.transponder.blog/britain-has-... #trans #rights #uk #EHRC #LGBT #gender

Britain has become a dark mirror for trans rights

Mirrors are interesting objects: what others see as being left, mirrors show on the right. A dark mirror, then, shows a bleak alternate reality: one that’s the exact opposite of how everyone else sees it. Such is the case with UK gender politics today. On one of my many

transponder.blog

📣 Announcing the release of the 🕊️ Annotated Encyclical 🕊️ from the ethics & society folks at @hf.co. Includes citations to relevant academic work. Very much a WIP. Please add work we haven't added yet! huggingface.co/spaces/socie...

The Annotated Encyclical - a Hugging Face Space by society-ethics

Magnifica Humanitas, annotated with AI-ethics research

huggingface.co

I finally got around to launch my personal blog and the first post is my book review of Karen Hao's Empire of AI. You can read it here: www.transponder.blog/book-review-...

Book review: Karen Hao - Empire of AI

For Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, Karen Hao conducted 300 interviews with around 260 people and scrutinized countless documents and correspondence. The result is an impre...

transponder.blog

look how they massacred my boy

“If a machine can defeat the best of our species at chess, ‘a domain that humans have viewed as sacrosanct, something that is quintessentially possessed by human intelligence,’ then what human endeavor is safe?” -- Washington Post, 1997

It was quite surprising to read the Pope’s encyclical and find it is basically an STS or media studies textbook.

RT@ryankturnbull.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Finally, a clear repudiation of the brain-dead “it’s just a tool” argument that gets floated cynically about every new technology:

"In the space of a few years, the UK has moved from a broadly inclusive status quo to being the most aggressively anti-trans developed democracy in the world." If you want to read up on just how bad things have gotten in the UK, read this article.

Toby Buckle@polphilpod.bsky.social · 4mo ago

the anti-trans bathroom ban is very bad—it's also a sign uk democracy is failing my latest with @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/the-end-of-t...

Heads up, #NLProc community! The 7th GeBNLP workshop is heading to AACL! 🌏 (and it'll be remote-friendly! 💻) While we’re still finalizing the details, we're putting this on your radar! 🚨 ✨ Start brainstorming those submissions now and stay tuned for the updates! #GeBNLP #AACL2026

Excellent thread "We risk all of science if we rush to build 'AI Scientists' before we understand the value of human science." ⬇️

M.J. Crockett@mjcrockett.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Last weekend I received the Troland Research Award from the @nationalacademies.org. I’m so grateful to the communities who made this work possible. It's strange to receive this award at a time when much of the work being recognized is not eligible for federal funding. My remarks 👇 and a 🧵>>

I'll speak about building community-centred harm taxonomies at the “Measuring and mitigating bias in AI” workshop, April 29th, 11am-3pm, Amsterdam. amsterdamnlp.github.io/blog/biaswor... in connection with the PhD defence of @ovdw.bsky.social #NLProc #bias #AI

I'll speak about building community-centred harm taxonomies at the “Measuring and mitigating bias in AI” workshop, April 29th, 11am-3pm, Amsterdam. amsterdamnlp.github.io/blog/biaswor... in connection with the PhD defence of @ovdw.bsky.social #NLProc #bias #AI