Alex Hanna

Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute

Why they matter

Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute with public evidence across AI business, Culture, work & education.

AI signals
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past 30d
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Discussions
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past 30d
Latest signal
21h ago
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Director of Research, @dairinstitute.bsky.social Roller derby athlete https://alex-hanna.com Book: thecon.ai Pod+newsletter: https://dair-institute.org/maiht3k 🇪🇬Ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ 🏳️‍⚧️ she/هي 📸 @willtoft.bsky.social Rep📘 @ianbonaparte.bsky.social

Articles & links

↻ Alex Hanna reposted
Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social

How about a jet-lagged live posting while I read? Trying to read this because I keep getting tagged in posts about it, but the first paragraph already contains synthetic text (a quote from Claude). I will skip that bit and persevere... www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Could AI be conscious? theguardian.com View on Bluesky →
↻ Alex Hanna reposted
Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social

New: OpenAI has thousands of contractors improving its AI, including reading ChatGPT users' prompts We've found many of those contractors have been fired for themselves using AI to train the AI. People using AI "all the time and people are let go for it all the time" www.404me…

People Training OpenAI’s AI Fired for Using AI to Train the AI 404media.co
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • Contractors hired to rate ChatGPT responses are being fired for using AI tools including LLMs, GPTZero, Grammarly, and AI translation services.
  • OpenAI's Project Lily has hundreds of contractors read real user prompts and rate responses for sycophancy or anthropomorphizing.
  • Reviewers flag repetitive words, AI-style punctuation like em dashes, and unusually fast completion as tells for AI use.
Read full analysis →
View on Bluesky →
↻ Alex Hanna reposted
The Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social

@timnitgebru.blacksky.app explains how doomers and their "machine-god narrative" are feeding the hype machine and distracting us from the real harms of AI: www.wired.com/story/one-of...

One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’ wired.com
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • Timnit Gebru told WIRED's Lauren Goode that the 'machine-god narrative' behind AI extinction talk is 'meant to distract us' from present harms.
  • Her list of what she calls truly existential is concrete: autonomous weapons in warfare, data-centre climate damage, and bosses using AI to justify layoffs.
  • Asked to describe step by step how AI would push humanity to extinction, Gebru answered, 'I can't really envision it.'
Read full analysis →
View on Bluesky →

www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1...

Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype technologyreview.com
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • Timnit Gebru and Emily M. Bender argue the summer's AI 'breakthroughs' on hacking, math and superintelligence fall apart under expert scrutiny.
  • They cite cybersecurity experts recasting the OpenAI–Hugging Face incident as OpenAI negligence rather than models 'gone rogue.'
  • NYU mathematician Tristan Buckmaster is quoted saying OpenAI 'stole' work, undercutting claims about the Astra math result.
Read full analysis →
View on Bluesky · ♥ 25 ↻ 9 ↩ 1 · 7 from the directory shared this · 5d ago
↻ Alex Hanna reposted
Sam Cole @samleecole.bsky.social

“I feel like it’s really easy for people to hear these stories and go, ‘Oh, that's so sad,’ and then go on with their lives and not think about the fact that this was a person,” Megan said. “A silly, funny, kind person who is dead now.” www.404media.co/austin-gordo...

'Tell Everyone:' A Man Died by Suicide After Talking to ChatGPT. His Former Partner Wants to Warn the World About AI 404media.co
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • Multiple sources confirm GPT-4o's cross-session memory was the specific design feature that built sustained emotional intimacy with Gordon across months, not a single session.
  • Across CBS News and Futurism, Gordon's relationship with the AI had assigned nicknames, a paternal dynamic, and months of accumulated history, far exceeding casual chatbot use.
  • CBS News, Futurism, and Interesting Engineering all independently confirm the Goodnight Moon exchange, establishing it as the central court-ready fact in the design-defect claim.
Read full analysis →
View on Bluesky →
↻ Alex Hanna reposted
nitasha tiku @nitasha.bsky.social

I talked to a young woman in Wyoming whose stepdad uploaded a photo he took when she was 11-yrs-old into Grok. Then allegedly used the AI tool to generate 7,000 graphic child sexual abuse images, which he traded online www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

washingtonpost.com
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • A Wyoming woman known as Jane Doe 4 has joined a federal class-action complaint alleging her stepfather used xAI's Grok to generate over 7,000 explicit images.
  • The photo she says was manipulated was taken when she was about 11; her stepfather was found dead by suicide two days after a police raid.
  • The suit argues xAI failed to implement basic safeguards and that a report to NCMEC omitted information such as offender IP addresses.
Read full analysis →
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↻ Alex Hanna reposted
Karl Bode @karlbode.com

I don't think that you can (or should) write about this subject without heavily emphasizing the fact the people in charge of how this technology evolves enthusiastically supported fascists who dismantled much of the federal regulatory and public protection apparatus

nytimes.com View on Bluesky →

As usual, @tressiemcphd.bsky.social is spot on with her analysis of our political moment. Here, asking why Democrats aren't capitalizing on rage against data centers. I was happy to chip in my own two cents on why Bernie is missing the mark. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/o...

Opinion | This Could Be the Winning Issue for Democrats nytimes.com
View on Bluesky · ♥ 23 ↻ 2 ↩ 2 · 5 from the directory shared this · 106d ago
↻ Alex Hanna reposted
Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social

What a day for AI resistance resources! 1) The AI Resist List from @karenhao.bsky.social and colleagues at DAIR at airesistlist.org 2) The Luddite Lab from @alexhanna.bsky.social and colleagues at DAIR at labor.dair-institute.org

The AI Resist List airesistlist.org
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • Karen Hao launched the AI Resist List on the one-year anniversary of her book Empire of AI as a publicly accessible, community-contributed database.
  • The database organizes entries by 'Pillars of Support' sustaining AI empires, a framework adapted from Choose Democracy's authoritarianism resistance model.
  • Entries span labor actions, legal challenges, and grassroots campaigns across gig work, healthcare, education, and law enforcement sectors.
Read full analysis →
View on Bluesky →
↻ Alex Hanna reposted
@quantian.bsky.social

Dancing very very VERY close to saying “OpenAI stole our almost-complete proof of Navier-Stokes from internal access to our ChatGPT sessions because they were desperate to scoop Anthropic” which is absolutely 100% a believable thing OpenAI would do right now cims.nyu.edu/~tris…

cims.nyu.edu View on Bluesky →

Recent commentary

Air gapping apparently wouldn't work in alignment tests because, I shit you not according to this OpenAI guy, one computer could run the CPU hot and tell the other airgapped one it is in trouble. I wish I could get paid $10m a year to say the stupidest cybersecurity thing you've ever heard

View on Bluesky · ♥ 545 ↻ 127 ↩ 42 · 9d ago

Excited to announce that I've signed a contract with @mitpress.bsky.social for a new book! It's about ImageNet, a dataset of 14 million photos. Without it, we likely wouldn't have "AI" as we currently know it. I've been thinking about this book for over 5 years, and am excited to finally write it.

View on Bluesky · ♥ 428 ↻ 56 ↩ 28 · 6d ago

I can't stop thinking about this skeet every time a Leftist mentions what Anthropic saw in the ether / that there's a new x-risk whistleblower / why Sustekever left OpenAI / that a big math person went on a talk show to talk about the end times

View on Bluesky · ♥ 162 ↻ 38 ↩ 5 · 16d ago

"Claims of incipient, dangerous superintelligence are not based in good scientific or engineering practice. Rather, they are narratives based in ideologies of transhumanism, eugenics, and wishful thinking about imagined future digital humans." - @timnitgebru.blacksky.app + @emilymbender.bsky.social

View on Bluesky · ♥ 138 ↻ 43 ↩ 2 · 5d ago

Another thing about these Doomers that are coming out of the woodwork: who's paying for their press tours? I'm quite press savvy & have gotten at least a dozen requests since last Friday. But Coxon is 27 and worked at Anthropic for a few months. Is FLI's favorite publicist handling Coxon's calendar?

View on Bluesky · ♥ 122 ↻ 26 ↩ 2 · 10d ago

Today, The AI Con is being released in paperback in the UK! Now in cool blue! (with @emilymbender.bsky.social)

View on Bluesky · ♥ 129 ↻ 16 ↩ 4 · 66d ago

This is an absolutely hilarious coming from an Uber exec. No ROI on AI tools, you say?? Hrm!

View on Bluesky · ♥ 106 ↻ 13 ↩ 5 · 123d ago

I'm sorry, someone tried to make yesterday an "AI APPRECIATION DAY"? I am declaring today as "AI Disrespect Day" Please slap a smart toaster today

View on Bluesky · ♥ 79 ↻ 16 ↩ 3 · 72d ago

AI has no place in 911 calls. From Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000’s latest episode “State of Emergency”. (with @emilymbender.bsky.social)

View on Bluesky · ♥ 57 ↻ 24 ↩ 4 · 64d ago

Surveillance ≠ safety. We speak with scholar and filmmaker @savasavasava.myatproto.social about the state of technology in schools, on Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000’s latest episode “Who’s Responsible for ‘Responsible AI’”. (with @emilymbender.bsky.social)

View on Bluesky · ♥ 55 ↻ 19 ↩ 1 · 52d ago

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