Shannon Vallor

Called it

Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I. nytimes.com

Wired is unaware of the extent to which I can be motivated by moral outrage. And spite. A lot of spite.

Even If You Hate AI, You Will Use Google AI Search | WIRED wired.com

It is a profound indictment of most media coverage of Big Tech that your best bet for getting an informed understanding of AI and its dangers is following a decently curated list of Bluesky shitposters

This is so frustrating to read from The New Yorker. Reward hacking *long* predates LLMs. The Coast Runners paper on reward hacking (in reinforcement learning, pre-LLMs) is 10 years old! Reward hacking is not new, and not a sign of a breakthrough intelligence, much less sentience. Did AI write this?

I'm rereading an old paper of mine from 2017 ('AI and the Automation of Wisdom') and I'm having one of these moments

Me after I’ve turned off the unwanted AI summaries

The fact that people are using AI to steal my writing, churn out a shittier version of it, falsely attribute it to someone more famous, and get more press coverage and sales for their book than I ever will is *chef’s kiss* pure 2026 energy

I am watching a well-known AI critic give a talk, and every single slide is stuffed with cheesy AI slop illustrations (as design background, not images to be discussed). It must be ironic, but honestly it’s like watching someone giving a lecture on sewer treatment while smeared in poop

It bothers me how many AI critics are failing to keep their critiques aligned with where the models actually are. I hate to give it to the haters (of the haters), but good criticism has to get close enough to its target to understand it, and stay close.

Spent a plane ride reading Pope Leo's Encyclical on AI. Many thoughts to share later, but this will stick with me: "The quality of a civilization is measured not by the power of its means, but by the care it is able to offer, by its ability to recognize the other as a face not merely as a function."

Spending my scarce time generously doing unpaid reviews of manuscripts that I discover midway are entirely AI-generated is turning me into the damn Joker. Trying not to take it out on editors, who are victims in this too, and who need our diligent professional service, but I'm about to fully snap

Having just come off BBC Radio Scotland, sending good thoughts to all my fellow AI researchers also drowning in media requests this week and trying to fight a multibillion-dollar gilded firehose of bullshit with spray bottles of reason and facts