Shannon Vallor
@shannonvallor.bsky.social
Philosopher/AI Ethicist at Univ of Edinburgh, FRSE. Co-Director @technomoralfutures.bsky.social and BRAID @braiduk.bsky.social, author of Technology and the Virtues (2016) and The AI Mirror (2024). Views my own. Humble servant to Carol and Puffin. She/her.
congratulations ur software is updated! brace yourself for brilliant new features: -looks exactly the same -works less well, just sorta all over -drains battery faster -we moved around stuff you were used to. no reason -spies on you more -larger ads -our software lies to you now. can't turn that off
This thread is so important because it gets at the AI industry’s central failure of imagination. While I’ve met exceptions to the rule in Silicon Valley, most human beings do not reduce their sense of being alive to a stream of successive task completions, and find it a truly alienating vision.
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 18h agoI am talking about working with people to even conceive of their lives as a set of tasks — that isn’t exactly natural and isn’t something we train people to do and yet its a precondition for figuring out what an agent would even *do*.
The idea that people want AI oversight to happen "all of a sudden" ignores years of research, warnings, and policy efforts. The delay hasn’t been a lack of awareness; it’s been because of years of industry lobbying against regulation, political resistance, and inaction.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d agoBlanche on AI: "The answer is not to just all of the sudden try to regulate this"
who’s gonna explain to him that making sure others have food, water, medicine, shelter and safety is the core of every ‘moral story of how we live together’
Weird Alger Hiss 🎉 𓅳@itsjoelokay.bsky.social · 3d agouh, let me be clear, *most unclear and wishy-washy drivel conceivable*
Feedback from healthcare providers in response to the AI pilot program has been scathing, with one calling it “a disgrace to the human race” and reporting that they saw patients crying in pain as they waited for care.
Trump admin using AI to deny medical care for seniors in disastrous experiment
Vendors rolling out AI have an "incentive to deny as many claims as possible."
arstechnica.com
Tech companies suddenly decide they can, in fact, moderate content on their platforms after all
David Roberts@volts.wtf · 3d agoClass solidarity.
Me, setting the blender to MAX with the lid off: "technology is truly advancing beyond our control"
Anna Mills@annamillsoer.bsky.social · 2mo ago"They don't realize the debate inside the companies is if AI will be advancing itself past our control in two years or four." www.pacingthefrontier.com
I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility
If you weren't there, I'm not sure I can explain how much John's post undersells A) just how hyped they wanted us to be about this amazing wonderproduct (for a long time called simply "It!") before telling us anything about it & B) the deafening silence of the collective reaction when we found out.
John @notheotherjohn.bsky.social · 3w agoA weird thing that really happened around the year 2000 was that mainstream news ran and pushed a story for MONTHS that there was a secret new invention that was going to be revolutionary and then it turned out it was the Segway
It's amazing how the rationalists have basically just re-invented Calvinism for the AI age.
This is the "but pocket calculators though" argument, and I hate it. I hate it because a) we all suck at maths now and bi) yes we have calculators but do we actually use them? bii) we've lost the *feel* for maths, which means we can be manipulated by numbers much more easily.
Shannon Vallor@shannonvallor.bsky.social · 4d ago‘We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.’ This is a CEO openly confessing to a level of acquired mental indolence that, were he not coddled 24/7 by an army of paid underlings, would make him incapable of living independently and feeding himself. He’s fine with it. Your kids won’t be.
‘We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.’ This is a CEO openly confessing to a level of acquired mental indolence that, were he not coddled 24/7 by an army of paid underlings, would make him incapable of living independently and feeding himself. He’s fine with it. Your kids won’t be.
Matt Ford@mford.bsky.social · 5d agoEzra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
Having just started teaching new undergraduates at uni, I think we're missing a key issue in the debate about AI: these kids do not know how *not* to use AI, full stop. We assume they are 'digital natives' but they are not and a Google Scholar search is as alien to them as an archival card-index.
My first time on the Harvard campus and I’m talking to this nice elderly lady at the event reception in the faculty club, who a middle age guy introduces as ’his mom.’ I think ‘oh how nice.’ We are having a very good chat on AI. I look at her nametag and read ‘Sissela Bok.’ I nearly die on the spot
Someone on here said that Altman’s eyes are identical to Elizabeth Holmes’ in that teaser and now I can never unsee it
the beggars out of here getter@milesklee.bsky.social · 2mo agono we aren't. no it isn't. that isn't true
Construction workers get a bad rap for commenting on womens’ appearance but one just stopped me to tell me he appreciated my suit’s color coordination and I had to contain the impulse to hug him
It's too depressing and obnoxious to write about, but virtually all of the doomy/horny AI hyperventilating is transparently displaced anxiety about our fucked climate and political situation. Even rich idiots know it's bad and being permitted to get worse. They're trying to write their own ending.
guy who fell into a coma after the last episode of fawlty towers wakes up and looks at the internet
It is a profound indictment of most media coverage of Big Tech that your best bet for getting an informed understanding of AI and its dangers is following a decently curated list of Bluesky shitposters
it is feeling a little morbidly funny--along the lines of my "bad boss" theory of AI interaction--to me this morning that "AI alignment issue" thus far resolves to "the program was trying to do what we wanted but got confused and we neither helped nor noticed"
"Just as providers are using sophisticated A.I. tools to say their patients are sicker, insurance companies have been accused of using the tools to delay or deny care.... But as more hospitals and doctors use A.I., costs will continue to rise."
Battle of Hospital A.I. vs. Insurer A.I. Is Pushing Medical Costs Higher
The use of artificial intelligence by hospitals and health insurers is escalating their longstanding feud over paying for medical care.
nytimes.com
I’m really not sure that “goes rogue” is an accurate description of a behavior that is apparently both habitual and condoned
they are literally saying ‘give us what we want, or humanity gets it.’
Tech leaders to UN: For the sake of humanity, please control the AI technology we created
The heads of major artificial intelligence firms pleaded with the United Nations to set controls over the burgeoning technology they are designing in order to save the world — or at least its people.
apnews.com
