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Bonni Stachowiak shares about her card game, Go Somewhere: A game of metaphors, AI, and what comes next on episode 597 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode A lot of you have been asking me about this game that I've played now and facilitated at over 10 universities and conferences called Go Somewhere. -Bonni Stachowiak What the game allows people to do is to be a little bit playful, laugh, and smile as we explore very serious things. -Bonni Stachowiak It can be helpful to have a map when we think about all of the different ways that artificial intelligence might impact our teaching. -Bonni Stachowiak The other issue that comes up a lot as we start talking about artificial intelligence is how often it bumps up against our sense of identity. -Bonni Stachowiak Continue to learn, reflect, and keep moving. Go somewhere. -Bonni Stachowiak Resources Assistant, Parrot, or Colonizing Loudspeaker? ChatGPT Metaphors for Developing Critical AI Literacies, by Anuj Gupta, Yasser Atef, Anna Mills, & Maha Bali Teaching in Higher Ed AI Resources and Episodes All Aboard - Digital Skills Map (Ireland) Where are the crescents in AI? by Maha Bali Different Critiques of AI in Education, by Maha Bali Critical AI Literacy is Not Enough: Introducing Care Literacy, Equity Literacy & Teaching Philosophies, by Maha Bali Teaching AI Ethics, by Leon Furze Scooby-Doo AI Metaphors We Live By: The Language of Artificial Intelligence, by Leon Furze Her (2013) On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots, by Bender, Gebru, et al. Episode 576: The AI Con with Emily M Bender and Alex Hanna The Princess Bride (1987) Are We Tripping? The Mirage of AI Hallucinations, by Anna Mills & Nate Angell ChatGPT is a Blurry JPEG, by Ted Chiang Permission Slip, by Bryan Mathers from Visual Thinkery How Will AI Impact Gen Z?
Neste episódio do Emílias Podcast, Ingrid Mendes e Adolfo Neto conversam com Laura Castro, professora na Universidade da Corunha (UDC), Espanha. Laura é titular da Cátedra CICAS, um projeto colaborativo entre a UDC e a empresa Singular voltado para o fortalecimento da Ciência Aberta por meio de software livre e tecnologias inovadoras. Atualmente, também atua como diretora do CEXEF (Centro de Estudos de Gênero e Feminismo da UDC), onde impulsiona pesquisas interdisciplinares sobre gênero, ciência e tecnologia. Ativa na comunidade BEAM e na Erlang Ecosystem Foundation, Laura combina expertise técnica em linguagens funcionais com um forte compromisso com a equidade e a diversidade no ambiente acadêmico e tecnológico. Além disso, é integrante da AMIT-GAL, Associação de Mulheres Investigadoras e Tecnólogas, que promove a visibilidade das mulheres na ciência na Galiza.Página de Laura Castro: https://lauramcastro.github.io/Laura Castro no Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lauramcastro.bsky.social Palestra de Laura Castro sobre Property-Based Testing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gu9EXRraG8 ChatGPT e o nesgo de automatización(em galego) https://archive.is/NJIqn(em português - tradução) https://gist.github.com/adolfont/95b683c508293f06bc997e67d2a0f68d Diário de um magohttps://www.companhiadasletras.com.br/livro/9788584390700/o-diario-de-um-magoErlang Ecosystem Foundation GPTs for learning Elixir, Erlang and OTP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=598UwaGVOk0 12 anos apoiando o ensino de Arquitetura de Software com a BEAM, por Laura M. Castro #FnConf 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmrp8Ej85gQIndicações:Algorithms of Oppression - Algoritmos da opressão, Safiya Umoja Noble https://amzn.to/3M0Mxsg Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor, Virginia Eubanks https://amzn.to/4pf8eDD The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - A Era do Capitalismo de Vigilância, Shoshana Zuboff https://amzn.to/4qZyQtS Cracking the Digital Ceiling: Women in Computing Around the World, Carol Frieze e Jeria L. Quesenberry https://amzn.to/4nTkmcg Série Halt and Catch Fire https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire_(s%C3%A9rie_de_televis%C3%A3o) Indicação Adolfo: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want https://amzn.to/3KzvVaz https://thecon.ai/ “The AI Con and Brazil - a conversation with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna about the dangers of ‘AI'” https://youtu.be/lgvpUH7bc-g?si=TkmN7tWVDHQc14s6 Editor: Adolfo Neto https://adolfoneto.elixiremfoco.com/ Episódio 130 do Emílias Podcast.O Emílias Podcast é um projeto de extensão da UTFPR Curitiba que faz parte da Rede Emílias de Podcasts https://fronteirases.github.io/redeemilias. Descubra tudo sobre o programa Emílias - Armação em Bits em https://linktr.ee/Emilias #podcast #EMILIAS
Gisele Secco, Adolfo Neto, and Victor Hugo Germano talk with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, authors of The AI Con, about their concerns regarding the current state of AI developments, particularly with questions on topics we believe to be especially relevant to Brazil's current situation.The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want https://amzn.to/3KzvVaz, https://thecon.ai/.Some links related to AI https://adolfont.github.io/research/AI/
It's been 10 years since the start of Community Pulse and, appropriately enough, we've reached the milestone of 100 episodes. To celebrate, we invited Jono Bacon -- our very first guest on the show -- and SJ Morris -- a former host of the show -- to join us and reminisce about changes in the DevRel industry as well as how we've changed personally and professionally over the last 10 years. We'll laugh a little… cry a little… and as always, learn a lot along the way. Checkouts Jason Bono * Primalbranding (https://a.co/d/0sCISVA) by Patrick Hanlon and Hooked (https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788) by Nir Eyal - awesome books, very relevant * Attio (https://attio.com/) / OpusClip (https://www.opus.pro/) / Anam (https://anam.ai/) - awesome tools * Stateshift (https://www.stateshift.com/) * MobLand on Paramount+ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MobLand) SJ Morris * Developers, Reinvented (https://ashtom.github.io/developers-reinvented) * Design from the Margins (https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/design-margins) Wesley Faulkner * Kitten TTS (https://github.com/KittenML/KittenTTS) * Add Bluesky comments and likes to your blog (https://brittanyellich.com/bluesky-comments-likes/) PJ Hagerty * The AI Con (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-ai-con-emily-m-bender/1146281317?ean=9780063418561&gStoreCode=2542&gQT=2) - How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M Bender and Alex Hanna * Tyler the Creator - Don't Tap the Glass (https://combine.fm/spotify/album/1jzv3jwZbt8lYfEtMjiD1R) Jason Hand * New After Pulse site (coming) * Anyone can Play Music (https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Can-Play-Music-Potential/dp/0593850971) by Josh Turknett * 100 repos (and demos) * ai-tools-lab.com (https://ai-tools-lab.com/) * LLM Observability Learning Course (https://learn.datadoghq.com/courses/llm-obs-getting-started) (FREE) Mary Thengvall * Upcoming book that I had a preview of and am very excited about (coming from Apress in early 2026)! Developer Relations Activity Patterns: A Unified Approach to Devrel, DX and Community Management by Scott McAllister, David Neal, Ted Neward, and Chris Woodruff * Fun (random) things have made me smile lately: * Miniature Cheese Graters (https://amzn.to/45EJNbw) * Lapel Pins (https://amzn.to/41sYj3C) Special Guests: Jono Bacon and SJ Morris.
This episode is an audio version of a virtual panel held online via the Linguistic Society of America, on August 16, 2025. This is part two of our conversation on GenAI and linguistics, this time focusing on Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, Ph.D.’s recent book “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want.” I am joined again by our amazing panel of linguists to talk about the problems of anthropomorphizing AI, how AI magnifies inequalities affecting minoritized people, and what linguists can do to push back against the constant AI hype. Panelists: Aubrie Amstutz, Responsible AI Research Scientist at Grid Dynamics Alicia Beckford Wassink, Director of the Sociolinguistics Laboratory and Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington Katie Swindler, specialist in discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, most recently a Program Manager at Mother Tongue AI and currently freelancing as a consulting linguist Part 1 of the discussion is here Topics include – generative AI – ethical AI – AI hype – anthropomorphization – language use – journalism – activism If you’d like to support this show, we’ve got a Patreon!The post Episode #79: The AI Con Discussion Panel (Live) first appeared on Linguistics Careercast.
Ethan, Ryan, and Kat discuss books about AI. Books discussed: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna I, Robot by Isaac Asimov Simply Artificial Intelligence published by DK Other titles discussed: The Song of Achilles, Circe by Madeline Miller, Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment by Jason Schreier, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.
00:08 Emily M. Bender,a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington, and Alex Hanna, Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), co-authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want [Re-broadcast of an interview originally recorded on July 10] The post The AI Con [rebroadcast] appeared first on KPFA.
Nach “Blockchain” und dem “Metaverse” ist “künstliche Intelligenz” der nächste Technologie-Hype, auf den die gesamte Gesellschaft aufspringt. Die ganze Gesellschaft? Nein. Ein gar nicht so kleines akademisches Dorf stellt sich gegen den Hype und in ihrem Buch “The AI-Con” entwickeln Emily Bender und Alex Hanna wichtige Argumente dafür, warum KI unsere Probleme nicht lösen und unsere Welt nicht besser machen wird - vermutlich eher im Gegenteil: Arbeit wird nicht weniger, sondern schlechter, Sozialsysteme noch ungerechter und Kunst, Kultur und Journalismus werden leiden. KI wird die Menschheit nicht unterwerfen, aber weiter in die Arme eines unbarmherzigen Kapitalismus treiben.
In this episode, Dr Miah Hammond-Errey is joined by Professor Emily M. Bender—A renowned AI commentator, professor of linguistics at the University of Washington and co-author of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech Hype and Create the Future We Want. In this episode we explore the complex relationship between language, large language models, and the rise of “synthetic text-extruding machines.” Bender discusses the origins of the “stochastic parrots” metaphor, the risks of anthropomorphising generative AI, and what's really at stake as automated systems permeate journalism, leadership, and collective decision making. The conversation outlines some of the social and democratic impacts of synthetic content, including on democratic discourse and journalism, the dangers of language standardisation, and how emerging tools can erode diversity and self-confidence in language users. Emily Bender offers practical advice for policymakers and leaders, emphasizing transparency, recourse, and data minimisation. She offers observations from her book tour, reflecting on the ongoing need for human connection in a digital era, and outlines the importance of workers' collective rights in navigating the future of automation.
This week we have a chat with Prof Emily M Bender and Dr Alex Hanna about their latest book The AI Con.
Live Linguistics Careercast coming your way on August 16! Join us for part two of our conversation on GenAI and linguistics, this time focusing on Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, Ph.D.’s recent book “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want.” And we’ll follow the taping with a networking event in Gather! Host Laurel Sutton will be joined again by Alicia Beckford Wassink, Katie Swindler, and Aubrie Amstutz to continue the conversation from our live episode at LingFest25, which we released as a podcast on April 22, 2025. The 90 minute panel will take place in Zoom and will include a Q&A portion. After the panel, we'll move to Gather for an hour of networking. We invite attendees to mix and mingle, and to have space to process the great conversation. PANEL DISCUSSION/LIVE PODCAST: 10:00 – 11:30 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada) GATHER NETWORKING EVENT: 11:30AM – 12:30PM Pacific Time (US and Canada) Tickets are $5 for LSA members, and $7 for the general public. Registration can be found on Linguistic Society of America (LSA)’s website: https://www.lsadc.org/ev_calendar_day.asp?date=8/16/2025&eventid=106&mc_cid=d47d2d569b Big thanks to LSA for sponsoring this event! Haven't read the book yet? Pick up a copy or stop by your local bookstore!The post Live Linguistics Careeercast August 16 2025 – The AI Con Discussion first appeared on Linguistics Careercast.
Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? Linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear that kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper, 2025), Bender and Hanna offer a, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms. They show you how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. Bender and Hanna expose AI hype for what it is: a mask for Big Tech's drive for profit, with little concern for who it affects. Alfred Marcus is Edson Spencer Professor at the Carlson School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? Linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear that kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper, 2025), Bender and Hanna offer a, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms. They show you how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. Bender and Hanna expose AI hype for what it is: a mask for Big Tech's drive for profit, with little concern for who it affects. Alfred Marcus is Edson Spencer Professor at the Carlson School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? Linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear that kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper, 2025), Bender and Hanna offer a, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms. They show you how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. Bender and Hanna expose AI hype for what it is: a mask for Big Tech's drive for profit, with little concern for who it affects. Alfred Marcus is Edson Spencer Professor at the Carlson School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society
Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? Linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear that kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper, 2025), Bender and Hanna offer a, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms. They show you how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. Bender and Hanna expose AI hype for what it is: a mask for Big Tech's drive for profit, with little concern for who it affects. Alfred Marcus is Edson Spencer Professor at the Carlson School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? Linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear that kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper, 2025), Bender and Hanna offer a, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms. They show you how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. Bender and Hanna expose AI hype for what it is: a mask for Big Tech's drive for profit, with little concern for who it affects. Alfred Marcus is Edson Spencer Professor at the Carlson School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? Linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear that kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper, 2025), Bender and Hanna offer a, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms. They show you how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. Bender and Hanna expose AI hype for what it is: a mask for Big Tech's drive for profit, with little concern for who it affects. Alfred Marcus is Edson Spencer Professor at the Carlson School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day
00:08 Emily M. Bender is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington, Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR); they've co-authored the book The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want The post Emily Bender and Alex Hanna on The AI Con appeared first on KPFA.
Kris returns from Vegas, poorer in money but rich in experiences, which she is here to share. Later, the pair deep dive into the latest season of The Ultimatum: Queer Love. As of the time of recording, the final episodes had not been released, so these are very in-process thoughts. Official Recommendations From Kris: Sally (2025) Kris's official recommendation this week is the documentary Sally (2025), which explores the life of the first female astronaut, Sally Ride, including her accomplishments and the revelation about her sexuality after her death. Kris described this as a powerful documentary, emotional and informative, and she thinks she and Sally would have been great friends. From Tara: A Rare Find by Joanna Lowell Tara's official recommendation this week is A Rare Find by Joanna Lowell, an enemies-to-lovers queer romance set in the Regency period. It features a young woman who wishes to be taken seriously as an anthropologist and ventures to find an old Viking burial ground she believes to be on her property. Works/People Discussed FUBAR (Netflix) Alone (The History Channel) Alone: Australia (SBS) My Mom Jayne (2025) The Ultimatum: Queer Love (Netflix) RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars (Paramount+) KPop Demon Hunters (2025) The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna This is Who I Am by Harper Bliss Support & follow the show Buy us a Ko-fi Sign up for our newsletter on Substack Facebook: @QueerlyRecommended Instagram: @queerlyrecommended Bluesky: @queerlyrec.bsky.social Get all our links on Linktr.ee
Emily M. Bender & Alex Hanna share about their book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want on episode 576 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode What's going on with the phrase artificial intelligence is not that it means something else than what we're using it to mean, it's that it doesn't have a proper referent in the world. -Emily M. Bender There's a much broader range of people who can have opinions on AI. -Alex Hanna The boosters say AI is a thing. It's inevitable, it's imminent, it's going to be super powerful, and it's going to solve all of our problems. And the doomers say AI is a thing, it's inevitable, it's imminent, it's going to be super powerful, and it's going to kill us all. And you can see that there's actually not a lot of daylight between those two positions, despite the discourse of saying these are two opposite ends of a spectrum. -Emily M. Bender Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions. -Alex Hannay Resources The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want, by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) The Princess Bride Emily Tucker, Executive Director, Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? By Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, and Shmargaret Shmitchell Emily M. Bender's website How the right to education is undermined by AI, by Helen Beetham How We are Not Using AI in the Classroom, by Sonja Drimmer & Christopher J. Nygren Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI, by Karen Hao
Welcome to B The Way Forward Interludes - a series of conversations that don't necessarily fit in our regular season, but are just too good to not share. Heard something about AI Lately? Have those two letters shown up in just about every app you use - whether you want them to or not? Yeah. Same. These days, it seems like you can't go an hour without hearing that Artificial Intelligence is going to radically remake our world. But… is it? There's so much hype it can be hard to really know what people even mean when they say AI. It can't all be ChatGPT helping you with cover letters and AI-generated images of the Balenciaga Pope, can it? Dr. Timnit Gebru is one of the voices speaking loudly and honestly about AI outside of the Big Tech hype bubble. And she has the bonafides to back that up. Timnit holds a BA, Masters and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Vision from Stanford. Plus, She co-led Google's Ethical AI research team… until, in 2020, she and her co-lead sounded the alarm about the potential harms of large language models in a paper they titled “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big.” That paper led to an abrupt end to her time at Google. But Timnit hasn't stopped working on how AI and Machine Learning can be developed in ways that serve all communities - most recently as the co-founder and Executive Director of DAIR. In part 1 of our 2-part conversation, we talk about what AI is and isn't, the difference between AI summers and AI winters, and why bigger isn't always better when it comes to language Models. For more, check out Timnit and her work... On Bluesky - @timnitgebru.bsky.social On Mastodon - @timnitGebru@dair-community.social On LinkedIn - /timnit-gebru-7b3b407 On X - @timnitGebru And read Timnit, and Emily M. Bender's paper, “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big.” --- At AnitaB.org, our mission is to enable and equip women technologists with the tools, resources, and knowledge they need to thrive. Through innovative programs and initiatives, we empower women to chart new paths, better prepared to lead, advance, and achieve equitable compensation. Because when women succeed, they uplift their communities and redefine success on their terms, both professionally and personally. --- Connect with AnitaB.org Instagram - @anitab_org Facebook - /anitab.0rg LinkedIn - /anitab-org On the web - anitab.org --- Our guests contribute to this podcast in their personal capacity. The views expressed in this interview are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology or its employees (“AnitaB.org”). AnitaB.org is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of the information provided in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute legal or other professional advice or services. --- B The Way Forward Is… Hosted and Executive Produced by Brenda Darden Wilkerson. Produced by Avi Glijansky Associate Produced by Kelli Kyle Sound design and editing by Ryan Hammond Mixing and mastering by Julian Kwasneski Additional Producing help from Faith Krogulecki Operations Coordination for AnitaB.org by Quinton Sprull. Creative Director for AnitaB.org is Deandra Coleman Executive Produced by Dominique Ferrari, Stacey Book, and Avi Glijansky for Frequency Machine Photo of Brenda Darden Wilkerson by Mandisa Media ProductionsFor more ways to be the way forward, visit AnitaB.org
Will artificial intelligence usher in a world of increasing convenience and productivity, as its boosters claim? Or will AI take away our jobs and risk a robot apocalypse? Scholars Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender say: neither. They warn us against falling for either version of AI hype and discuss the impact of purported artificial intelligence—chiefly large language models and text-to-image generation–on surveillance and work, education and science. Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want Harper, 2025 Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash The post Hyping AI appeared first on KPFA.
Visit datasociety.net for to learn more about this Book Talk's speakers, access resources and referenced materials, and to purchase copies of The AI Con and Empire of AI.Purchase copies of these books from our Bookshop:The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex HannaEmpire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI by Karen Hao
This week, Tara discovers that all the fanfiction she's been reading lately has completely thrown off her ability to determine what is and is not a long book. Kris talks about her first time interacting with AI. This turns out to be Tara's activation phrase and leads to a longer conversation about AI, how it's coming for our jobs, and what we need to keep in mind when using it. And, of course, they bring recommendations. Official Recommendations From Kris: On Swift Horses (2024) Kris's official recommendation this week is On Swift Horses, a romantic drama film that revolves around a woman and her relationship with her husband's brother. Kris described their relationship as one of those "few times in a life" things that wake a person up to who they really are, challenging them to move past themselves. From Tara: Di-Curious by Erin Branch Tara's official recommendation this week is Di-Curious by Erin Branch, a book steeped in the TTRPG space (that's table-top roleplaying games for all you cooler kids). It's about one woman's journey to rebuild her career after a mishap puts her into the crosshairs of an old friend she'd unwittingly hurt. Sparks fly! Tara described this as a cozy, thoughtful, and lovely read. Works/People Discussed SASS - Sapphic Action Support Squad Facebook Group Ed Zitron The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna Queer Liberation Library The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC) Sirens (Netflix) Jeopardy! (NBC) RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars (Paramount+) Principle Decisions by Thea Belmont Boss of Her by Anna Stone Support & follow the show Buy us a Ko-fi Sign up for our newsletter on Substack Facebook: @QueerlyRecommended Instagram: @queerlyrecommended Bluesky: @queerlyrec.bsky.social Get all our links on Linktr.ee
Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, authors, "The AI Con" Tomaš Dvořák - "Gameboy Tune" - "Mark's intro" - "Interview with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna" [0:02:55] - "Mark's comments" [0:44:42] XTC - "Real By Reel" [0:54:37] https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/152572
Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, authors, "The AI Con" Tomaš Dvořák - "Gameboy Tune" - "Mark's intro" - "Interview with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna" [0:02:55] - "Mark's comments" [0:44:42] XTC - "Real By Reel" [0:54:37] https://freeform.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/152572
Dr. Emily M. Bender and Dr. Alex Hanna Dr. Emily M. Bender and Dr. Alex Hanna come on the show to talk about their new book “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want” published but LitHub. The book tackles the pitfalls of AI and why it's so crucial to understand the capitalist greed that is manipulating AI behind the scenes. https://thecon.ai/ A new installment of “This Week In Rotten History” from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell
Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna are the authors of a new book that The Guardian calls “refreshingly sarcastic” and Business Insider calls a “funny and irreverent deconstruction of AI.” They are also occasional contributors to Tech Policy Press. Justin Hendrix spoke to them about their new book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want, just out from Harper Collins.
We are in the middle of a hype cycle peak around AI as there are a lot of hyperbolic claims being made about the capabilities and performance of large-language models (LLMs). Computational Linguist Emily M. Bender and Sociologist Alex Hanna have been writing academic papers about the limitations of LLMs, as well as some of the more pernicious aspects of benchmark culture in machine learning, as well as documenting some of the many environmental, labor, and human rights harms from both the creation and deployment of these LLMs. Their book The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want comprehensively deconstructs the many of the false promises of AI, the playbook for AI Hype, and the underlying dynamics of how AI is an automation technology designed to consolidate power. Their book unpacks so many vital parts of the Science and Technology Studies narrative around AI including: How big technology companies have been using AI as a marketing term to describe disparate technologies that have many limitations How we anthropomorphize AI tech from our concepts of intelligence How AI Boosting companies are devaluing what it means to be human in order to promote AI technology How AI Boosters and AI Doomers are two sides of the same coin of assuming that AI is all-powerful and completely inevitable How many of the harms and costs associated with the technology are often out-of-sight and out-of-mind. This book takes a critical look at these so-called AI technologies, deconstructs the language that we use as we talk about these automating technologies, breaks down the hype playbook of Big Tech, restores the relational quality of human intelligence that is often collapsed by AI. It also provides some really helpful questions to ask in order to interrogate the hyperbolic claims that we're hearing from AI boosters. We talk about all of this and more on today's episode, and I have a feeling that this is an episode that I'll be referring back to often. This is also the 100th Voices of VR podcast episode that explores the intersection of AI within the context of XR, and I expect to continue to cover how folks in the XR industry are using AI. Being in right relationship to every aspect of the economic, ethical & moral, social, labor, legal, and property rights dimensions of AI technologies is still an aspirational position. It's not impossible, but it is also not easy. But this conversation helps to frame a lot of the deeper questions that I will continue to have about AI. And Bender and Hanna also provide a lot of clues to the red flags of AI Hype, but also some of the core questions to ask that help to orient around these deeper ethical questions around AI. I've also been editing unpublished and vaulted episodes of the Voices of AI that I did with AI researchers at the International Joint Conference of Artificial Intelligence that I did back in 2016 and 2018 (as well as a couple of other conferences), and I'm hoping to relaunch the Voices of AI later this summer to look back at what researchers were saying about AI 7-9 years ago to give some important historical context that's often collapsed within the current days of AI Hype (SPOILER ALERT: this is not the first nor the last hype cycle that AI will have). I'll also be engaging within a Socratic Style Debate where I'll be mostly arguing critically against AI on the last day of AWE (Thursday, June 12th, 2:45p) after the Expo has closed down, and before the final session. So come check out a live debate with a couple of AI Boosters and an AI Doomer. Also look for an interview that I just recorded with Process Philosopher Matt Segall diving more into a Process-Relational Philosophy perspective on AI, intelligence, and consciousness coming here soon. Segall and I are going to explore an elemental approach to intelligence, which is based upon concepts that I explore in my elemental theory of presence talk. Intelligence, privacy,
Paris Marx is joined by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna to discuss the harms of generative AI, how the industry keeps the public invested while companies flounder under the weight of unmet promises, and what people can do to push back.Emily M. Bender is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at University of Washington. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Institute. They are the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.Also mentioned in this episode:New York Magazine reported on the consequences of increasingly widespread use of ChatGPT in education.Support the show
On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna to discuss some of the harms caused by generative AI, address the industry's ploys to keep the public invested while companies flounder under the weight of unmet promises, and what folks can do to push back.Emily M. Bender is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at University of Washington. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Institute. They are the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, authors of "The AI Con," say the benefits of AI are being played up while the costs are being played down — and they lay out strategies for fighting the hype.
The Copyright Office Issues A Largely Disappointing Report On AI Training, And Once Again A Major Fair Use Analysis Inexplicably Ignores The First Amendment Trump Appointees Blocked From Entering US Copyright Office Meta's new AI glasses could have a 'super-sensing' mode with facial recognition Three things we learned about Sam Altman by scoping his kitchen The House GOP Quietly Slipped In An AI Law That Would Accidentally Ban GOP's Favorite 'Save The Children' Laws neat Gemini airline hack Interview with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna AI Use Damages Professional Reputation, Study Suggests Gemini smarts are coming to more Android devices Amazon Upfront 2025: Prime Video will show you AI pause ads - Fast Company E-COM: The $40 million USPS project to send email on paper The CryptoPunks NFTs are being sold to a non-profit as their value continues to fall Crypto boys are the worst.... Parisbait: I've watched every single Nicolas Cage film made so far. Here's what I learned about him – and myself Exclusive: InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel Uncle Tony's Reptile Shack neal.fun Testing Paris' language proficiency and youth The uncontroversial 'thingness' of AI Artifice and Intelligence The Anti-Bookclub Tackles 'Superagency' Information literacy and chatbots as search Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: storyblok.com/twittv-25 outsystems.com/twit bigid.com/im canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT
The Copyright Office Issues A Largely Disappointing Report On AI Training, And Once Again A Major Fair Use Analysis Inexplicably Ignores The First Amendment Trump Appointees Blocked From Entering US Copyright Office Meta's new AI glasses could have a 'super-sensing' mode with facial recognition Three things we learned about Sam Altman by scoping his kitchen The House GOP Quietly Slipped In An AI Law That Would Accidentally Ban GOP's Favorite 'Save The Children' Laws neat Gemini airline hack Interview with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna AI Use Damages Professional Reputation, Study Suggests Gemini smarts are coming to more Android devices Amazon Upfront 2025: Prime Video will show you AI pause ads - Fast Company E-COM: The $40 million USPS project to send email on paper The CryptoPunks NFTs are being sold to a non-profit as their value continues to fall Crypto boys are the worst.... Parisbait: I've watched every single Nicolas Cage film made so far. Here's what I learned about him – and myself Exclusive: InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel Uncle Tony's Reptile Shack neal.fun Testing Paris' language proficiency and youth The uncontroversial 'thingness' of AI Artifice and Intelligence The Anti-Bookclub Tackles 'Superagency' Information literacy and chatbots as search Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: storyblok.com/twittv-25 outsystems.com/twit bigid.com/im canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT
The Copyright Office Issues A Largely Disappointing Report On AI Training, And Once Again A Major Fair Use Analysis Inexplicably Ignores The First Amendment Trump Appointees Blocked From Entering US Copyright Office Meta's new AI glasses could have a 'super-sensing' mode with facial recognition Three things we learned about Sam Altman by scoping his kitchen The House GOP Quietly Slipped In An AI Law That Would Accidentally Ban GOP's Favorite 'Save The Children' Laws neat Gemini airline hack Interview with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna AI Use Damages Professional Reputation, Study Suggests Gemini smarts are coming to more Android devices Amazon Upfront 2025: Prime Video will show you AI pause ads - Fast Company E-COM: The $40 million USPS project to send email on paper The CryptoPunks NFTs are being sold to a non-profit as their value continues to fall Crypto boys are the worst.... Parisbait: I've watched every single Nicolas Cage film made so far. Here's what I learned about him – and myself Exclusive: InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel Uncle Tony's Reptile Shack neal.fun Testing Paris' language proficiency and youth The uncontroversial 'thingness' of AI Artifice and Intelligence The Anti-Bookclub Tackles 'Superagency' Information literacy and chatbots as search Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: storyblok.com/twittv-25 outsystems.com/twit bigid.com/im canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT
The Copyright Office Issues A Largely Disappointing Report On AI Training, And Once Again A Major Fair Use Analysis Inexplicably Ignores The First Amendment Trump Appointees Blocked From Entering US Copyright Office Meta's new AI glasses could have a 'super-sensing' mode with facial recognition Three things we learned about Sam Altman by scoping his kitchen The House GOP Quietly Slipped In An AI Law That Would Accidentally Ban GOP's Favorite 'Save The Children' Laws neat Gemini airline hack Interview with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna AI Use Damages Professional Reputation, Study Suggests Gemini smarts are coming to more Android devices Amazon Upfront 2025: Prime Video will show you AI pause ads - Fast Company E-COM: The $40 million USPS project to send email on paper The CryptoPunks NFTs are being sold to a non-profit as their value continues to fall Crypto boys are the worst.... Parisbait: I've watched every single Nicolas Cage film made so far. Here's what I learned about him – and myself Exclusive: InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel Uncle Tony's Reptile Shack neal.fun Testing Paris' language proficiency and youth The uncontroversial 'thingness' of AI Artifice and Intelligence The Anti-Bookclub Tackles 'Superagency' Information literacy and chatbots as search Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: storyblok.com/twittv-25 outsystems.com/twit bigid.com/im canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT
The Copyright Office Issues A Largely Disappointing Report On AI Training, And Once Again A Major Fair Use Analysis Inexplicably Ignores The First Amendment Trump Appointees Blocked From Entering US Copyright Office Meta's new AI glasses could have a 'super-sensing' mode with facial recognition Three things we learned about Sam Altman by scoping his kitchen The House GOP Quietly Slipped In An AI Law That Would Accidentally Ban GOP's Favorite 'Save The Children' Laws neat Gemini airline hack Interview with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna AI Use Damages Professional Reputation, Study Suggests Gemini smarts are coming to more Android devices Amazon Upfront 2025: Prime Video will show you AI pause ads - Fast Company E-COM: The $40 million USPS project to send email on paper The CryptoPunks NFTs are being sold to a non-profit as their value continues to fall Crypto boys are the worst.... Parisbait: I've watched every single Nicolas Cage film made so far. Here's what I learned about him – and myself Exclusive: InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel Uncle Tony's Reptile Shack neal.fun Testing Paris' language proficiency and youth The uncontroversial 'thingness' of AI Artifice and Intelligence The Anti-Bookclub Tackles 'Superagency' Information literacy and chatbots as search Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: storyblok.com/twittv-25 outsystems.com/twit bigid.com/im canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT
The Copyright Office Issues A Largely Disappointing Report On AI Training, And Once Again A Major Fair Use Analysis Inexplicably Ignores The First Amendment Trump Appointees Blocked From Entering US Copyright Office Meta's new AI glasses could have a 'super-sensing' mode with facial recognition Three things we learned about Sam Altman by scoping his kitchen The House GOP Quietly Slipped In An AI Law That Would Accidentally Ban GOP's Favorite 'Save The Children' Laws neat Gemini airline hack Interview with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna AI Use Damages Professional Reputation, Study Suggests Gemini smarts are coming to more Android devices Amazon Upfront 2025: Prime Video will show you AI pause ads - Fast Company E-COM: The $40 million USPS project to send email on paper The CryptoPunks NFTs are being sold to a non-profit as their value continues to fall Crypto boys are the worst.... Parisbait: I've watched every single Nicolas Cage film made so far. Here's what I learned about him – and myself Exclusive: InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel Uncle Tony's Reptile Shack neal.fun Testing Paris' language proficiency and youth The uncontroversial 'thingness' of AI Artifice and Intelligence The Anti-Bookclub Tackles 'Superagency' Information literacy and chatbots as search Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guests: Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: storyblok.com/twittv-25 outsystems.com/twit bigid.com/im canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT
Emily Bender is a computational linguistics professor at the University of Washington. Alex Hanna is the Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute. Bender and Hanna join Big Technology to discuss what their new book, “The AI‑Con," which they describe as the layered ways today's language‑model boom obscures environmental costs, labor harms, and shaky science. Tune in to hear a lively back‑and‑forth on whether chatbots are useful tools or polished parlor tricks. We also cover benchmark gaming, data‑center water use, doomerism, and more. Hit play for a candid debate that will leave you smarter about where generative AI really stands — and what comes next. --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack? Here's 25% off for the first year, which includes membership to our subscriber Discord: https://www.bigtechnology.com/subscribe?coupon=0843016b Questions? Feedback? Write to: bigtechnologypodcast@gmail.com
Talk the Talk - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Artificial intelligence (so-called) is typified by its boom and bust cycles, and we're in a boom now. But as more and more money pours in with decreasing returns, we're going to see a shakeout, and hype is rushing in to stoke the enthusiasm. In other words, the con is on. Dr Emily M. Bender and Dr Alex Hanna are co-hosts of the podcast Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, and the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want. They join us for this episode.
Is AI a big scam? In their co-authored new book, The AI Con, Emily Bender and Alex Hanna take aim at what they call big tech “hype”. They argue that large language models from OpenAI or Anthropic are merely what Bender dubs "stochastic parrots" that produce text without the human understanding nor the revolutionary technology that these companies claim. Both Bender, a professor of linguistics, and Hanna, a former AI researcher at Google, challenge the notion that AI will replace human workers, suggesting instead that these algorithms produce "mid" or "janky" content lacking human insight. They accuse tech companies of hyping fear of missing out (FOMO) to drive adoption. Instead of centralized AI controlled by corporations, they advocate for community-controlled technology that empowers users rather than exploiting them. Five Takeaways (with a little help from Claude)* Large language models are "stochastic parrots" that produce text based on probability distributions from training data without actual understanding or communicative intent.* The AI "revolution" is primarily driven by marketing and hype rather than groundbreaking technological innovations, creating fear of missing out (FOMO) to drive adoption.* AI companies are positioning their products as "general purpose technologies" like electricity, but LLMs lack the reliability and functionality to justify this comparison.* Corporate AI is designed to replace human labor and centralize power, which the authors see as an inherently political project with concerning implications.* Bender and Hanna advocate for community-controlled technology development where people have agency over the tools they use, citing examples like Teheku Media's language technology for Maori communities.Dr. Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington where she is also the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program and affiliate faculty in the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School. In 2023, she was included in the inaugural Time 100 list of the most influential people in AI. She is frequently consulted by policymakers, from municipal officials to the federal government to the United Nations, for insight into into how to understand so-called AI technologies.Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). A sociologist by training, her work centers on the data used in new computational technologies, and the ways in which these data exacerbate racial, gender, and class inequality. She also works in the area of social movements, focusing on the dynamics of anti-racist campus protest in the US and Canada. She holds a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics and a BA in Sociology from Purdue University, and an MS and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Hanna is the co-author of The AI Con (Harper, 2025), a book about AI and the hype around it. With Emily M. Bender, she also runs the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series, playfully and wickedly tearing apart AI hype for a live audience online on Twitch and her podcast. She has published widely in top-tier venues across the social sciences, including the journals Mobilization, American Behavioral Scientist, and Big Data & Society, and top-tier computer science conferences such as CSCW, FAccT, and NeurIPS. Dr. Hanna serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies and sits on the advisory board for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group. She is also recipient of the Wisconsin Alumni Association's Forward Award, has been included on FastCompany's Queer 50 (2021, 2024) List and Business Insider's AI Power List, and has been featured in the Cal Academy of Sciences New Science exhibit, which highlights queer and trans scientists of color.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Jeff and Jason sit down with Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, co-authors of The AI Con, to unpack the myths and real-world harms behind today's AI hype. They discuss why the term “AI” is so often misused, how Big Tech's models can fail marginalized communities, and why smaller, community-driven AI projects can better serve local needs. The conversation also explores the pitfalls of generative tools, the challenges of democratizing art, and the urgent need for real accountability in the tech industry Support the show on Patreon! http://patreon.com/aiinsideshow Subscribe to the YouTube channel! http://www.youtube.com/@aiinsideshow Enjoying the AI Inside podcast? Please rate us ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcatcher of choice! Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington, renowned for her work in computational linguistics, language technology, and as co-author of the influential "Stochastic Parrots" paper. Alex Hanna is a sociologist and Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), whose work focuses on how data in computational technologies shapes racial, gender, and class inequalities. Buy their new book "The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want" at http://thecon.ai Note: Time codes subject to change depending on dynamic ad insertion by the distributor. CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Podcast begins 01:44 - Introducing Emily Bender and Alex Hanna 02:23 - Why “AI” Is Misleading: Better Terms for Today's Tech 04:31 - What Is AI Actually Good For? Real-World Use Cases 06:29 - Hidden Data Opportunities in AI and Language Models 07:20 - Community-Driven AI: Real Benefits Beyond Big Tech 09:45 - The Thai Library Thought Experiment: Why AI Lacks Meaning 14:23 - Inside DAIR: Building Alternative AI Futures 19:13 - AI and Creativity: Remixing, Music, and Fair Compensation 24:00 - Does AI Democratize Creativity or Homogenize Voices? 33:47 - Debunking AI Doomerism and TESCREAL: Media's Role 40:29 - Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000: Podcast Origins and Mission 42:07 - Book Launch Details: The AI Con Release Events 45:07 - Can We Build Effective AI Guardrails? 50:30 - Synthetic Text Extruding Machine... STEM? 50:56 - Oxford Comma y/n? 51:18 - Thank you to Emily Bender and Alex Hanna for joining the AI Inside podcast Thank you to Emily Bender and Alex Hanna for joining the AI Inside podcast Contact us with questions and feedback: contact@aiinside.show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When reports like Adecco's Global Workforce of the Future survey find that the average saving for workers using AI is 1 hour a day, we should question this. * What did those workers do with their time savings? * Should that time savings benefit the employer or the employee?* Can we trust such a hard-to-measure stat?Our latest episode tackles this and other disruptions happening to the creative and production processes. Matthew Krissel is the Co-Founder of the Built Environment Futures Council and a Principal at Perkins&Will. For over two decades, he has led transformative architectural projects across North America and internationally. We discussed how AI is disrupting architecture and lessons for digital product teams. He really struck powerful points many times during our conversation about questioning the role of time and permanence in a world when we want more, faster.Other points covered in the conversation:* Commoditizing design makes production easier, enabling societies to tackle challenges like housing shortfalls* Commoditizing design devalues other vital processes, like community engagement, respectful place-making, and longevity of projects* Over-indexing AI's potential as a workflow optimizer, while under-indexing the potential to reimagine how complex projects are planned and operationalizedListen on Spotify | Listen on Apple PodcastsIn this newsletter, I'd like to tackle the concept of time saving and what it means from the perspective of crafting an AI strategy. Here was the most important quote from the episode: So just because something took half the time it did before, what happened is we just did more. So we just filled the time. Is there something higher and better use? I suspect that somewhere along the line the designs got better. Also I suspect that somewhere along there was diminishing returns. We were just doing more because we could not that it was actually yielding anything better. Are you gonna focus on fewer, but better increase your quality? Are you going to spend more time on business development or some entrepreneurial side hustle? Just go home early? What you decide to do as we start to gain productivity time is going to shape a lot of where this is all happening.Newsletter recommendation: Scott BelskyEssential insights and lessons from Scott Belsky that anyone building with AI must read. His newsletter is fantastic and a must-subscribe because of his unique cross-section of expertise across creativity, product, and innovation. His books have also always been pivotal reads to advance your craft. Hopefully, we can do some of the same with our Design of AI podcast and newsletter. Who should benefit most from your ability to learn AI: You or your employer?The challenge to creatives and builders is to decide who should benefit from these transformative technologies if you're self-taught:* Should you gift your employer the benefits if you've taught yourself ways of getting 25% more work accomplished in a day?* Should you gift yourself the benefits of your increased productivity and work on side projects, or spend more time with your family?Historically speaking, employers were responsible for the means and training of production. They paid for novel technologies —desktops, SaaS, big data— and were responsible for training you on how to use them. AI is different because employers are often lagging behind employees in embracing and educating on how to use the technology effectively. It is very easy to argue that the 200 hours you've spent learning AI outside of work hours should exclusively benefit you.AI Time Savings: Benefits & RisksTechnologies have consistently saved us time, but the resulting effects have been questionable. The internet and mobile phones connected the world, while also leading to increased poor health outcomes due to more time sitting. We also spend more time alone than ever.Further back, the Industrial Revolution raised the quality of life for everyone. Still, the commoditization of work led to industrialists exploiting child labour and putting everyone into deplorable working conditions that polluted communities. The time the workforce saved most benefited employers, with employees giving up their ways of life in favour of steady incomes. Most relocated to cities, got cut off from their families, and learned the pain of commuting for the first time.When it comes to AI, the benefits we hope for centre on automation and augmentation. The hope is that we will benefit from less shitty work (automated away) and that we can our new capabilities (augmented by AI) will enable us all become wealthy entrepreneurs. Sure, this may be true for the top 0.01% of AI users who learn how to run a typically 10-person business by themselves. For the rest of us our work may in fact get a lot shittier. At least that's what the authors of the upcoming book, The AI Con, believe. The authors (and upcoming Design of AI guests), Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender tell a tale of how AI's risks have been severely hidden under the rug. In their book, they document many examples of the technology performing so poorly at tasks that products were shut down within weeks.Maybe the future of businesses will look a lot like Amazon: A business offering endless products of questionable quality and provenance with no humans in sight except those working the worst possible jobs in sorting information, like something out of Severance. In this scenario, the majority of humans will be employed as mall cops of the technology, swooping in when a problem happens that slips between the programming and policies. At this point, AI hypers would argue that even if the enshittification of work is inevitable, AI will open up new and better types of jobs. Only time will tell. How does AI change our relationship with time?When buying productivity-boosting hardware and software, the expectation has always been that the results are undeniable. Going from handwriting to using a typewriter was immensely faster. The same is true when buying a new Saas platform that makes managing projects infinitely easier. Now, with GenAI-powered products, the ROI is unpredictable. The vast majority of capabilities deliver the illusion of rapid progress. Think of image and video generation —the immediate results are shockingly impressive. But getting results to be production-ready requires mastery of probabilistic software and/or resetting your expectations. It all means that the operator —you— ultimately plays a bigger role in the ROI of using this technology than with previous ones.So-called Vibe coding is a major testament to the time savings that AI can create. Anyone can now build a website and app without writing a line of code.Vibe coding platforms —like Cursor, Lovable, Replit, and many more— are fantastically easy to use… until they're absolutely painful to use. The stunning early rewards turn into confusingly broken components all over.Again, results depend on the operator's ability to debug using an entirely new interface paradigm (conversational). This continues the technology's remarkable inversion of the value paradigm, where workers define the quality of outputs.Looking ahead, mastery of data will triumph over mastery of interfaces. This favours employers who unlock the power of their first-party data and build solutions that augment and automate the expertise of their employees.Always worth reading, strategist and tech critic Tom Goodwin posted an intriguing analysis on LinkedIn this week. At the core of the guiding philosophy regarding AI-assistance is that the more complex the task, the less qualified AI is to work on the task unassisted.Check our previous podcast episode and newsletter for more details on how to unlock the power of your data. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit designofai.substack.com
This week, we blast off with a tale as old as grift: Fyre Fest 2 has been postponed—again—proving that you really can fail upward if you squint hard enough and wear enough white linen. Over at Automattic, employees discovered secret watermarks in their internal comms, because what workplace isn't better with a sprinkle of corporate surveillance cosplay? Meanwhile, Katy Perry took a joyride to the upper atmosphere with Gayle King and Bezos' better half, giving us the 2025 edition of the cringiest “Imagine”-style celebrity moment yet. Spoiler: no one needed this.In Elon World™, things are somehow even weirder. Seth Rogen dropped some truth bombs about Silicon Valley's MAGA leanings, only to have them surgically removed from the Breakthrough Prize stream. Musk, for his part, is managing his growing empire of baby mamas like a Bond villain with a baby registry. Add in a cringe-filled offer to a YouTuber to become Space Karen's next broodmare, and we've officially entered peak simulation. Meanwhile, whistleblowers are spilling DOGE secrets, OpenAI is building a social network (because we clearly don't have enough doomscrolling options), and 4chan has finally been hacked into oblivion. Pour one out—for the internet's dumpster fire.Also in the news: Google lost a big ad tech monopoly case (cue tiny violins), China is no longer buying the “autonomous” car hype after a fatal crash, and Trump's FCC chair is threatening Comcast for not being enough like Fox News (as if that's the journalistic gold standard). The Pentagon's nerd squad resigned after butting heads with DOGE, Reality Labs burned $45 billion like it was going out of style, and AI customer service bots are now inventing policies out of thin air. Oh, and if your AI thinks your Python package has a delivery issue—you're not crazy, it probably hallucinated it. Welcome to the future.Sponsors:Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/693FOLLOW UPFyre Fest 2 Postponed: “New Date Will Be Announced”Following Layoffs, Automattic Employees Discover Leak-Catching WatermarksIN THE NEWSUnfortunately for Katy Perry, That “Space Flight” Turned Out Exactly How We All Knew It WouldWe Finally Have 2025's “Imagine” VideoLet them eat spaceSeth Rogen's Criticism of Silicon Valley's Support for Trump Was Cut From the “Full” Stream of Breakthrough PrizeThe Tactics Elon Musk Uses to Manage His ‘Legion' of Babies—and Their MothersGlamorous influencer Tiffany Fong breaks silence on Elon Musk's 'offer to impregnate her' with shocking statementA whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor dataElectronics exempted from reciprocal tariffs will soon be subject to new semiconductor tariffs insteadGoogle loses ad tech monopoly caseChina cracks down on 'autonomous' car claims after fatal accidentTrump's FCC chair threatens Comcast, demands changes to NBC news coverageOpenAI is building a social network4chan Likely Gone Forever After Hackers Take ControlCompany apologizes after AI support agent invents policy that causes user uproarPentagon tech unit resigns after clash with Musk's DOGEWhat Does a Corrupt Election Look Like?Tesla puts finishing touches on Hollywood charge-n-dinerInside the $45 billion cash burn at Reality LabsWe Have a Package for You! A Comprehensive Analysis of Package Hallucinations by Code Generating LLMsThe business of the AI labs by Max BolingbrokeMEDIA CANDYKilling an Arab on PandoraApple's ‘Mythic Quest' is ending with an updated Season 4 finaleSide QuestNight of the ZoopocalypseBlack MirrorDaredevilThe Last of UsG2028 Years Later Rises From the Grave With a New Trailer'Real Time' host Bill Maher says President Trump was "gracious" and "not fake" during his White House visit.Bringing Down a DictatorBlueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World by Srdja PopovicAPPS & DOODADSApple is reportedly working on two new versions of the Vision ProIlya Bezdelev
Welcome to part 2 of our special event, “The AI Competition: Public Policy Strategies”. The event, co-hosted by MIT Technology Review, brings together some of the leading voices in AI policy from the public and private sectors to role-play these complex issues. These AI leaders play roles in the US, China, and The EU, and enact policies that best align with their roles interests in the AI space. This episode contains the second and final phase of the game. We hope you enjoy this insightful episode. Our Players: US Government Players White House (NSA, AI & Crypto Czar, Assistant to Pres. For S&T) - Doug Calidas, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) Government research institutions (funding) - Stephen Ezell Standards and governance (NIST, DOS, etc.) - Vivek Wadhwa, Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley Regulatory and trade (DOS, Treasury, etc.) - Susan Ariel Aaronson, American author, public speaker, and GWU professor Department of Defense- Daniel Castro, vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) Commerce Department - Anupam Chander, Scott K Ginsburg Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center Intel Community and Cyber Defense - David Mussington, professor of the practice the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, and currently serves as the CISA Executive Assistant Director Congress/State Department - Cameron Kelly, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institutution China players Central Military Committee representatives - Rohit Talwar, founder of FastFuture Intelligence and cyber - Daniel Richardson, President of Indepth Global AI Public/Private Industry - Sarah Myers West, co-director at AI Now Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)/Ministry of Industry and Information technology (MIIT) - David Lin, Senior Director for Future Technology Platforms at the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) European Union Governance- Courtney Radsch, Director, Center for Journalism and Liberty at Open Markets Institute Military/Security - Gordon LaForge, senior policy analyst at New America Regulatory - Michelle Nie, EU Tech Policy Fellow at the Open Markets Institute Industrial and research policy - David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council Intelligence Agencies - Rumman Chowdhury, scientist, entrepreneur, and former responsible artificial intelligence lead at Accenture Civil Society Large players (ChatGPT, META, Amazon, Microsoft) - Cody Buntain, Assistant Professor; Affiliate Fellow, UMD Honors College – Artificial Intelligence Cluster Medium players - Ramayya Krishnan, Dean, Heinz College Of Information Systems And Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University Open-source communities - Jay Lee, Clark Distinguished Chair Professor and Director of Industrial AI Center in the Mechanical Engineering Dept. of the Univ. of Maryland College Park Advocacy Organizations - David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council Legal Community - Kahaan Mehta, Research Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy Universities and academia Large universities - Nita Farahany, Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law at Duke Law Smaller schools - Anand Patwardhan, professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland Medium Universities - Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, CEO and Publisher at MIT Technology Review Government laboratories (Defense, DOE, etc.) - Emily M. Bender, University of Washington Professor This material is distributed by TRG Advisory Services, LLC on behalf of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in the U.S.. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to part 2 of our special event, “The AI Competition: Public Policy Strategies”. The event, co-hosted by MIT Technology Review, brings together some of the leading voices in AI policy from the public and private sectors to role-play these complex issues. These AI leaders play roles in the US, China, and The EU, and enact policies that best align with their roles interests in the AI space. This episode contains the second and final phase of the game. We hope you enjoy this insightful episode. Our Players: US Government Players White House (NSA, AI & Crypto Czar, Assistant to Pres. For S&T) - Doug Calidas, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) Government research institutions (funding) - Stephen Ezell Standards and governance (NIST, DOS, etc.) - Vivek Wadhwa, Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley Regulatory and trade (DOS, Treasury, etc.) - Susan Ariel Aaronson, American author, public speaker, and GWU professor Department of Defense- Daniel Castro, vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) Commerce Department - Anupam Chander, Scott K Ginsburg Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center Intel Community and Cyber Defense - David Mussington, professor of the practice the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, and currently serves as the CISA Executive Assistant Director Congress/State Department - Cameron Kelly, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institutution China players Central Military Committee representatives - Rohit Talwar, founder of FastFuture Intelligence and cyber - Daniel Richardson, President of Indepth Global AI Public/Private Industry - Sarah Myers West, co-director at AI Now Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)/Ministry of Industry and Information technology (MIIT) - David Lin, Senior Director for Future Technology Platforms at the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) European Union Governance- Courtney Radsch, Director, Center for Journalism and Liberty at Open Markets Institute Military/Security - Gordon LaForge, senior policy analyst at New America Regulatory - Michelle Nie, EU Tech Policy Fellow at the Open Markets Institute Industrial and research policy - David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council Intelligence Agencies - Rumman Chowdhury, scientist, entrepreneur, and former responsible artificial intelligence lead at Accenture Civil Society Large players (ChatGPT, META, Amazon, Microsoft) - Cody Buntain, Assistant Professor; Affiliate Fellow, UMD Honors College – Artificial Intelligence Cluster Medium players - Ramayya Krishnan, Dean, Heinz College Of Information Systems And Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University Open-source communities - Jay Lee, Clark Distinguished Chair Professor and Director of Industrial AI Center in the Mechanical Engineering Dept. of the Univ. of Maryland College Park Advocacy Organizations - David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council Legal Community - Kahaan Mehta, Research Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy Universities and academia Large universities - Nita Farahany, Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law at Duke Law Smaller schools - Anand Patwardhan, professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland Medium Universities - Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, CEO and Publisher at MIT Technology Review Government laboratories (Defense, DOE, etc.) - Emily M. Bender, University of Washington Professor This material is distributed by TRG Advisory Services, LLC on behalf of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in the U.S.. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to a very different episode of Siliconsciousness. Today, we are taking a creative new approach to discussing the future of AI. This episode comprises the first part of our special event, “The AI Competition: Public Policy Strategies”. The event, co-hosted by MIT Technology Review, brings together some of the leading voices in AI policy from the public and private sectors to role-play these complex issues. These AI leaders play roles in the US, China, and The EU, and enact policies that best align with their roles interests in the AI space. This first episode contains the first phase of the game, as well as introductions from the editor in chief of MIT Technology Review Mat Honan as well as game controller Ed McGrady. We hope you enjoy. Our Players: US Government Players White House (NSA, AI & Crypto Czar, Assistant to Pres. For S&T) - Doug Calidas, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) Government research institutions (funding) - Stephen Ezell Standards and governance (NIST, DOS, etc.) - Vivek Wadhwa, Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley Regulatory and trade (DOS, Treasury, etc.) - Susan Ariel Aaronson, American author, public speaker, and GWU professor Department of Defense- Daniel Castro, vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) Commerce Department - Anupam Chander, Scott K Ginsburg Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center Intel Community and Cyber Defense - David Mussington, professor of the practice the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, and currently serves as the CISA Executive Assistant Director Congress/State Department - Cameron Kelly, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institutution China players Central Military Committee representatives - Rohit Talwar, founder of FastFuture Intelligence and cyber - Daniel Richardson, President of Indepth Global AI Public/Private Industry - Sarah Myers West, co-director at AI Now Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)/Ministry of Industry and Information technology (MIIT) - David Lin, Senior Director for Future Technology Platforms at the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) European Union Governance- Courtney Radsch, Director, Center for Journalism and Liberty at Open Markets Institute Military/Security - Gordon LaForge, senior policy analyst at New America Regulatory - Michelle Nie, EU Tech Policy Fellow at the Open Markets Institute Industrial and research policy - David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council Intelligence Agencies - Rumman Chowdhury, scientist, entrepreneur, and former responsible artificial intelligence lead at Accenture Civil Society Large players (ChatGPT, META, Amazon, Microsoft) - Cody Buntain, Assistant Professor; Affiliate Fellow, UMD Honors College – Artificial Intelligence Cluster Medium players - Ramayya Krishnan, Dean, Heinz College Of Information Systems And Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University Open-source communities - Jay Lee, Clark Distinguished Chair Professor and Director of Industrial AI Center in the Mechanical Engineering Dept. of the Univ. of Maryland College Park Advocacy Organizations - David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council Legal Community - Kahaan Mehta, Research Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy Universities and academia Large universities - Nita Farahany, Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law at Duke Law Smaller schools - Anand Patwardhan, professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland Medium Universities - Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, CEO and Publisher at MIT Technology Review Government laboratories (Defense, DOE, etc.) - Emily M. Bender, University of Washington Professor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
This is our hundredth episode that's enthusiastic about linguistics! To celebrate, we've put together 100 of our favourite fun facts about linguistics, featuring contributions from previous guests and Lingthusiasm team members, fan favourites that resonated with you from the previous 99 episodes, and new facts that haven't been on the show before but might star in one of the next 100 episodes in greater detail. In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne talk about brains, gesture, etymology, famous example sentences, languages by the numbers, a few special facts about the word "hundred" and way more! This episode is both a fun overview of the vibe of Lingthusiam if you've never listened before, and a bonus bingo card game for diehard fans to see how many facts you can recognize. We also invite you to share this episode alongside one of your favourite fun facts about linguistics and help more people find Lingthusiasm in honour of our 100th episodiversary! Whether you pick something new that resonates from this episode, or share the fact you were sitting on the edge of your seat hoping we'd mention, we look forward to staying Lingthusiastic with you for the next 100 episodes. Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: episodes.fm/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjAxMDg1Njk3MQ Read the transcript here: lingthusiasm.com/post/772874564563845120/transcript-episode-100 Announcements: In this month's bonus episode we get enthusiastic about some of our favourite deleted bits from recent interviews that we didn't quite have space to share with you! First, we go back to our interview with phonetician Jacq Jones, previously seen talking about how binary and non-binary people talk. Then, we return to computational linguist Emily M. Bender to talk about how Emily's students made a computational model of Lauren's grammar of Lamjung Yolmo and how linguistics is a team sport. Finally, we return to our group interview with the team behind Tom Scott's Language Files to talk about sneaky Icelandic jokes and the unedited behind-the-scenes version of the gif/gif joke. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You'll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: patreon.com/posts/118982443 For links to things mentioned in this episode: lingthusiasm.com/post/772874257193730048/lingthusiasm-episode-100-a-hundred-reasons-to-be
Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
When a human learns a new word, we're learning to attach that word to a set of concepts in the real world. When a computer "learns" a new word, it is creating some associations between that word and other words it has seen before, which can sometimes give it the appearance of understanding, but it doesn't have that real-world grounding, which can sometimes lead to spectacular failures: hilariously implausible from a human perspective, just as plausible from the computer's. In this episode, your host Lauren Gawne gets enthusiastic about how computers process language with Dr. Emily M. Bender, who is a linguistics professor at the University of Washington, USA, and cohost of the podcast Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000. We talk about Emily's work trying to formulate a list of rules that a computer can use to generate grammatical sentences in a language, the differences between that and training a computer to generate sentences using the statistical likelihood of what comes next based on all the other sentences, and the further differences between both those things and how humans map language onto the real world. We also talk about paying attention to communities not just data, the labour practices behind large language models, and how Emily's persistent questions led to the creation of the Bender Rule (always state the language you're working on, even if it's English). Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: episodes.fm/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMTk2NDIxOTY5OQ Read the transcript here: lingthusiasm.com/post/767803835730231296/transcript-episode-98 Announcements: The 2024 Lingthusiasm Listener Survey is here! It's a mix of questions about who you are as our listener, as well as some fun linguistics experiments for you to participate in. If you have taken the survey in previous years, there are new questions, so you can participate again this year. Take the survey here: bit.ly/lingthusiasmsurvey24 In this month's bonus episode we get enthusiastic about three places where we can learn things about linguistics!! We talk about two linguistically interesting museums that Gretchen recently visited: the Estonian National Museum, as well as Mundolingua, a general linguistics museum in Paris. We also talk about Lauren's dream linguistics travel destination: Martha's Vineyard. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You'll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds. Sign up here: patreon.com/posts/115117867 Also, Patreon now has gift memberships! If you'd like to get a gift subscription to Lingthusiasm bonus episodes for someone you know, or if you want to suggest them as a gift for yourself, here's how to gift a membership: patreon.com/lingthusiasm/gift For links to things mentioned in this episode: lingthusiasm.com/post/767803572750581760/lingthusiasm-episode-98-helping-computers-decode
In episode 1697, Jack and Miles are joined by hosts of Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, Prof. Emily M. Bender & Dr. Alex Hanna, to discuss… AI Is Breaking The Internet and The World AI, Debunking Lies About AI Magic, Dangerous And Harmful Ways AI Is Actually Being Used and more! LISTEN: Out In The Sun (Hey-O) by The Beach-NutsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.