This article ends with a good conclusion, but it is extremely misguided along the way. It is also a rich text for exploring how clear language helps make the point better. A thread: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... >>
Who's Who of AI
Emily M. Bender
Professor of linguistics at the University of Washington
Why they matter
Professor of linguistics at the University of Washington with public evidence across NLP & language, AI research.
- AI signals
- 20 past 30d
- Sources
- 18 distinct domains
- Discussions
- 22 past 30d
- Latest signal
- 14h ago
Book: https://thecon.ai
Web: https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender
What they're sharing
science.org
The AI Slop Backlash Is Actually Having an Impact wired.com
Researchers Wanted Preschool Teachers to Wear Cameras to Train AI 404media.co
Could AI be conscious? theguardian.com
Google Search as you know it is over | TechCrunch techcrunch.com
Software Developers Say AI Is Rotting Their Brains 404media.co
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You can no longer Google the word 'disregard' | TechCrunch techcrunch.com
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What Emily Bender Really Meant by "Stochastic Parrots" spectrum.ieee.org
The AI Resist List airesistlist.org
Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics leidendeclaration.ai
Now is the Time to Give LLMS Access to the ACM Digital Library Why ACM Believes the benefits outweigh the risks in opening up the ACM Digital Library to large language models docs.google.com
No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious theatlantic.com
Articles & links
The environmental damage is well documented at this point. I think the status of data centers as focal points of economic damage merits a little more expansion: www.wired.com/story/the-ai...
AI Weekly's analysis
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- WIRED argues the anti-slop backlash is producing real platform changes rather than just complaint threads, with tools and policies to flag AI content spreading.
- Substack, YouTube and Pinterest have all added detection, labels or user controls, with Substack partnering with the detection firm Pangram.
- Merriam-Webster and the Macquarie Dictionary named 'slop' word of the year, and one anti-slop Facebook group has nearly 250,000 members.
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Absolutely horrified at this planned study from my own institution: www.404media.co/researchers-... >>
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...
Wow some terrible reporting about Google's latest horrible ideas about how to distort information access in the name of "convenience" (or something): techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/g... A short thread 🧵>>
Emily M. Bender reposted
"Predictably, the huge spike in productivity that these companies claim their own AI products have enabled hasn’t resulted in more or better products, shorter work weeks, or better consumer experiences." www.404media.co/software-dev...
Emily M. Bender reposted
“I have been a tech journalist for nearly 15 years, and before today, I cannot think of a single time when a Bing search result was more valuable than the Google equivalent. There really is a first time for everything!” Thanks, AI! techcrunch.com/2026/05/22/y...
Emily M. Bender reposted
“The message that I always bring when I have a chance is that, when the text that comes out of one of these systems makes sense, it’s because we are making sense of it. This is also in the stochastic parrots paper.”
AI Weekly's analysis
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- Bender says the 'stochastic parrots' metaphor was meant to describe large language models specifically, not all AI systems.
- The 2021 paper was co-authored with Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell, both later fired by Google before its publication.
- Bender says the paper's biggest omission was the exploitative labor practices underlying large language models.
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Emily M. Bender reposted
A new project educators can use to teach the many ways AI resistance takes shape: "Now people around the world are mobilizing to resist the empires of AI and to nourish visions of the future that work for all of us. Amid an onslaught of negative news, this project centers hope."
AI Weekly's analysis
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- 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.
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This is very well done, I think: leidendeclaration.ai A few choice quotes, that should be of interest well beyond mathematics: >>
AI Weekly's analysis
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- The Leiden Declaration, released June 2, 2026, warns AI threatens proof integrity, attribution, and peer review in mathematics.
- Over 2,654 signatories including Fields Medal winner Terence Tao have endorsed the community-initiated declaration.
- The International Mathematical Union backs the declaration, which makes separate recommendations to researchers, publishers, policymakers, and AI developers.
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Over on linkedin, I heard from Jeanna Matthews, co-chairing an ACM taskforce on Responsible AI use (saving commentary on that framing for later…) that this decision does *not* come from ACM leadership & that community input really matters. Make your voice heard here: docs.goog…
"Even if the Microsoft Office team employed a philosopher who said you shouldn’t be so certain, because consciousness is not well understood, that would not be sufficient reason for you to take this idea seriously." www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...
Their own posts
Recent commentary
A phenomenon I've noticed recently is people trying to occupy some untenable middleground wrt to the use of systems sold as "AI" -- this is a position where people try to recognize the harms of this tech but also hold space for "responsible" or "ethical" use. 🧵>>
So many conversations where otherwise serious people throw around the term "AI" without defining it, despite it being notoriously ill-defined. Thinking about why this might be >>
Just came across (via a citation alert) a new paper that purports to be a thematic synthetisis of the academic literature on ethical issues of LLMs. It doesn't cite Stochastic Parrots. >>
So Anthropic decided that "let's pause now" was tired and is instead talking about *planning* for a "pause" in the future in case of (lol) self-improving "AI". ... and NPR at least is platforming this nonsense credulously. >>
Recently agreed to review a paper for a journal, based on its promising-looking abstract. Only after agreeing was I shown the author's "AI" disclosure statement. >>
Something called Boltlab..ai (blocked now) is in my mentions. bsky won't show me what they are replying to, but whatever it was, the composition was strong because I used my own brain to write it and you can just fuck right off.
Don't illustrate posts about The AI Con or any of my work with slop (aka synthetic images) challenge: Level impossible, it seems alas. w/ @alexhanna.bsky.social
Anyone taking bets on how long before Holden whines about bsky being "anti-AI"?
Should I listen to an hour of Hinton unhinged ("AI is already conscious") or nah?
I am getting so many spam emails about book clubs asking to feature The AI Con -- which of course they could do without asking me, so these are clearly paid promotional "opportunities". But I've got to wonder, do these book clubs have any real members?
Their network
In Emily M. Bender's orbit
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