Here is some interesting insight into how that narrative is spun: cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/st... >>
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
- 46 past 30d
- Sources
- 37 distinct domains
- Discussions
- 43 past 30d
- Latest signal
- 3d ago
Book: https://thecon.ai
Web: https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender
What they're sharing
cims.nyu.edu
science.org
nytimes.com
Forget ‘superintelligence’: error-prone AI nearly sparked world war three this month | Timnit Gebru and Emily M Bender theguardian.com
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
These Tech Workers Made ChatGPT Drive a Toyota Corolla 404media.co
edition.cnn.com
Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype technologyreview.com
Software Developers Say AI Is Rotting Their Brains 404media.co
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Articles & links
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/... >>
And every time I pause to look back at that, it seems like the hype has gotten bigger, more extensive, and more insidious. This week, I am seeing credulous media coverage of Anthropic consulting with religious thinkers to try to work out how to "grow" Claude into a moral being…
AI Weekly's analysis
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- Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah read an advance copy of Pope Leo XIV's encyclical and proposed pulling the company out of the May 25 launch.
- The sticking point was the 40,000-word Magnifica Humanitas rejecting machine consciousness; after private lobbying, the final text did not move.
- Since fall 2025, Anthropic has flown religious scholars from six traditions to its offices under NDAs to discuss whether Claude might be conscious.
Read full analysis →
New from @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me: "It is high time for us to regulate usage of systems sold as “AI”, not because they are magical machines, but because they are error-prone products that shouldn’t be used in high stakes scenarios." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
AI Weekly's analysis
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- A US special operations analyst used a chatbot to assess intel on a Chinese ship, and the AI falsely claimed it carried nuclear weapon components.
- Military planes were in the air and personnel were preparing to board before officials caught the hallucination and stood down, per CNN sources.
- Gebru and Bender argue the real AI risk is error-prone deployment in high-stakes settings today, not speculative superintelligence.
Read full analysis →
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.
Read full analysis →
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 🧵>>
Hey, remember when engineering fields (all of them) took pride in precision, rigorous testing, safety standards, sufficient margins for error, etc? Yeah, that was nice. www.404media.co/these-tech-w... >>
AI Weekly's analysis
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- Only OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra completed a parking-lot cone course; Grok 4.6, GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Fable 5.1 stalled within meters.
- The team relabelled the whole setup a 'sandbox' after models refused to drive once they realized the parking lot was real.
- The 2022 Toyota Corolla was wired via Comma's open-source kit and driven at 0.94 mph with a human's foot over the brake.
Read full analysis →
I have been yelling since 2021 about how using synthetic text extruding machines for information access is a TERRIBLE IDEA. And yet and yet and yet: they are marketing so heavily that way that people keep falling for it. edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
From @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me on what we should take from the 2026 summer of AI hype: www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1...
AI Weekly's analysis
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- 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 →
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...
Their own posts
Recent commentary
Anthropic is out with new nonsense about Claude (or the collection of models called Claude) deserving moral consideration and/or be able to feel distress, so my inbox is filling up with journos asking me to comment. I've also got a day job, so here is a brief set of public comments on this: >>
Between the PRs of (largely likely stolen) math breakthroughs, claims of "rogue AI" (actually cybercrimes by companies, but whatevs), and doomerist "whistleblowers", it feels like we've been subjected to a gish gallop of hype recently. >>
Really tried of the genre of bsky discourse that goes: "Here is an incredibly pointless thing I use LLMs for, now please bsky be normal about it." >>
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. 🧵>>
This sign is a great example for helping to explain why chatbots present such a potent illusion. A probably not short thread 🧵>>
There seems to be a coordinated talking point among the EA folks that the "standard" approach to "AI" on "the Left" is "AI is just stochastic parrots so no need to worry about it". (Sorry for all the scare quotes, but y'know) >>
Thinking still more about the AI booster discourse that tries to undermine critical work on the topic by saying "They don't even use it, how can they possibly know what they're talking about." >>
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 >>
AI Doomerism has been in the news lately, especially with the loud, viral resignation of Jacob Coxon from Anthropic. Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen any statements from CEOs and other execs who are more on the AI Booster side of the ledger. >>
Thinking about the selling point of "AI" supposedly "freeing up time" to do important things. Beyond devaluing the tasks that we can supposedly offload to software systems, it occurs to me that this is kind of opposite of mindfulness/being in the moment. >>
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