bsky.app·platform·259 items·last fetched
Hearing lots of discourse about "stochastic parrots" recently? Here's a discussion of the backstory, both of the phrase itself and what's going on now.
The headline they assigned is pretty hilarious, too. Professor points out that a fictional story is fictional! That that is news, well.
I appreciated this chance to go on Bloomberg Tech, though it's always a bit odd to have a conversation with a reporter who is really interested in what's effectively a fictional story. www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/...
Tonight! @ghostdoc2026.bsky.social Documentary on @deadline.com 's For the Love of Docs: deadline.swoogo.com/ftlodghostin... @alexhanna.bsky.social and I join director Valerie Veatch for a panel discussion.
This is pretty ahistorical actually. Just because what's going on now is ESPECIALLY toxic & corrupt doesn't mean "AI" as an ideology was ever okay. See: notaidoc.com See: faculty.washington.edu/ebender/pape... >>
V annoyed at this kind of erasure. "I can't be bothered to read their work so I'm just going to assume they've only been saying the one thing I happen to know them for." Even the original paper was documenting a RANGE…
Really not sure what the point of this is. I do my very best to avoid consuming synthetic media, even though I can't always avoid it. Does not being able to avoid it somehow devalue my critique of "AI"? >>
Have you seen @ghostdoc2026.bsky.social yet? If not, you are in for a treat --- a thoughtful, wry deep dive into the history, present, and ideology of "AI". Streaming for free on PBS's YouTube channel in the US &…
I really enjoyed recording this one, having met Maggie and Shahir at a workshop in August about teaching critical thinking in STEM in the current environment. www.rustbeltscience.com/episodes/pis...
On the next Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 livestream, we’re so excited to chat with authors of the new book, Against Tech Oligarchy! @js-tan.bsky.social and Clarissa Redwine will join me and @alexhanna.bsky.social to…
I heard some absolutely infuriating reporting on OnPoint today (not about 'AI', for once). The guest was someone who's written a book meant to advise Dems on how to win. >>
Kind of beside the point, but there's an interesting study in contrasts in the two parts of this op-ed we didn't have control over: >>
New from @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me: "It is high time for us to regulate usage of systems sold as “AI”, not because they are magical machines, but because they are error-prone products that shouldn’t be used in…
What a thrill to get to interview Keoni Mahelona of Te Hiku Media for Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000! www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis... Keoni, @alexhanna.bsky.social and I had a wonderful conversation about…
There's a long discussion going on in my mentions about whether or not "LLMs" (quotes explained in a sec) apparently getting mostly* correct answers to arithmetic questions is "inconsistent" with the stochastic parrots…
Hey, remember when engineering fields (all of them) took pride in precision, rigorous testing, safety standards, sufficient margins for error, etc? Yeah, that was nice. www.404media.co/these-tech-w... >>
Guys, no one doubts that Tesla is responsible if its cars roll down hills and crash into people (or anything else). The problem is that until VERY recently, it was not accepted that it was possible for something on…
This is a thread about erasure of women's expertise and work in this area. As often happens, erasure comes together with overexposure. >>
I think there are two key lessons from Linguistics as we deal with LLMs/chatbots being imposed on us everywhere. Grateful for Undark Magazine giving space for me to lay these out: undark.org/2026/09/25/i...
Just listened to the latest @dreamingagainstthemachine.com and while there's some good stuff here, some of it also needs a response: www.dreamingagainstthemachine.com/episode-24-t... 🧵>>
I'm afraid the Doomer discourse has persisted for another week (UN "AI" briefing, etc) so in case you missed this when we first put it out earlier in this bananas news cycle, I'm reposting it…
When Coxon was suddenly ALL OVER the media, it felt to many like that was because his story deserved that much interest i.e. that the media was doing its job informing the public of an important threat. The…
Carl's Speak-n-Spell went rogue and said lots of bad words.
"X's Y went rogue and" meme when?
Completely unclear to me what the business model of this start-up is, but this stunt amounts to "We went around putting placebo roofies in people's drinks to show how easy it is to put roofies in people's drinks."…
For reasons mysterious to me, Will Stancil is continuing his crash out about language used to describe LLMs, moving on from raning about "stochastic parrots" to picking up on this piece that @nannainie.bsky.social and…
I, for one, am fed up with "stochastic parrots" being co-opted to erase the work of so many brilliant scholars and activists. Some references in this thread, but there are many, many more that could be added.
There seems to be a coordinated talking point among the EA folks that the "standard" approach to "AI" on "the Left" is "AI is just stochastic parrots so no need to worry about it". (Sorry for all the scare quotes, but…
From @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me on what we should take from the 2026 summer of AI hype: www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1...
The word of the day is: "unleash" I've been seeing a lot of "unleashing AI", "unleashing expertimentation (with AI)", and even ostensibly critical "OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT on the world with no one's consent". >>
Honestly trying to figure out what happened here. I don't think this is satire. Maybe these folks, so enamored with "human-in-the-loop"-less "AI" decided not to bother checking what their LLM spat out?
This one is going to be amazing!
The number of people replying to this with "but but but I found "AI" useful for ... " Guys, that's not the point of this thread.
Thinking about the selling point of "AI" supposedly "freeing up time" to do important things. Beyond devaluing the tasks that we can supposedly offload to software systems, it occurs to me that this is kind of opposite…
"I belong to a cult. Someone did some research that undermines the core tenets of my cult and came up with a catchy phrase that makes it harder to recruit more people to my cult. This makes me sad."
And every day there is more Fresh AI Hell. What's worse than polluting the information ecosystem with synthetic text dressed up to look like news? Dressing it up further as the work of fake Indigenous journalists…
In his intro to his interview with me on @dreamingagainstthemachine.com , @adambecker.bsky.social introduced me as something like one of the few people whose even more of an "AI hater" than he is. Things like this may…
Just got done listening to the @404media.co podcast interview with Sherry Turkle. Lots of wise stuff in there about empathy and how artificial friends aren't just a poor substitute for actual human connection but…
I would like to thank @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social and @danieldrucker.bsky.social for this incredibly concise encapsulation of how "superintelligence" discourse diverts energy and attention from the real, actual harms: >>
Everyone is running around talking about fictional "existential risk" of "rogue AI" systems this week. It's never the "AI" doing something though, it's people using janky software in ill-advised ways. (On top of all…
I have been yelling since 2021 about how using synthetic text extruding machines for information access is a TERRIBLE IDEA. And yet and yet and yet: they are marketing so heavily that way that people keep falling for…
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, Episode 85: www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis... … in which @alexhanna.bsky.social and I sift through the ramblings of billionaires who understand neither the world we live in nor the tech…
After reading Gates's recent manifesto for MAIHT3k with @alexhanna.bsky.social I can attest that The Needling here is just reporting the news. www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis...
All of this coverage of AI Doomerism making you anxious? It's nonsense and you can go back to your more pressing concerns. If you want to learn more: buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...
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Why, thank you, Kevin Crane! The whole review is pretty fun, too, and hey, here's a book on "AI" that no one needs to spend any more time on. www.counterfire.org/article/obso...
"You might think I'm making this up; I'm not. I'm reporting on things that other people made up" "I wish I were making this up, but I'm not" ... things we have to say when talking about the apocalyptic AI Harry Potter…
Wow this has been an exhausting week. After lots of talking with the media, I'm really feeling how much effort it takes to push through and keep the focus on the real harms when everyone is running around shouting "The…
Lol -- over on X Nate Silver is apparently holding me up as an example of how "the Left" is anti-AI regulation, and proving his point by posting screen caps of ch 7 of The AI Con, where @alexhanna.bsky.social and I…
I appreciate how @troywolv.bsky.social locates expertise in this article --- but note that whoever wrote the headline still wants to frame the story as about "AI skeptics". www.sfexaminer.com/news/technol...