Expert attention map

The Who's Who of AI

What credible people across AI noticed, why it matters, and where the field is converging or disagreeing.

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Posts are grouped by conversation and tone. Select a lens to filter the stream; these are never permanent labels on people.

Research & technical analysis Building & implementation Concern & critique Opportunity & adoption
3 live reaction maps in this view Jump to the evidence ↓
Reaction converging Models Don't Go Rogue Concern & critique · 3 attributable reactions Multiple readings Unit distance remarks Research & technical analysis · 2 attributable reactions Multiple readings The Future Is Not Tech-Forward Policy & governance · 3 attributable reactions
Showing signals surfaced by Benjamin Riley ×
New & accelerating

What is moving across the network now

One card per development. Sources are clustered; reaction bundles describe these posts, never the people behind them.

Developing Safety & security Analysis 1d ago
models don't go rogue essay

Models Don't Go Rogue

8 experts across 3 network communities independently surfaced this.

8 experts 3 communities 1 sources clustered
Timnit Gebru Eryk Salvaggio Luke Stark Shannon Mattern Mél Hogan / The Data Fix Benjamin Riley Elke Schwarz René Walter
How the network is reacting 3 experts are independently emphasizing concern & critique.
Reaction converging

Concern & critique

3 experts

Risks, limits and unintended consequences.

“Well we just disagree here, that's ok. Because I don't think it helps anyone to credit AI agents with "building a civilization" (or three) and hinting that the little guys getting dangerously smart. I'm with @eryk.bsky.social: mail.cyberneticforests.com/mod…”

5 experts discussed this · 20 posts
Timnit Gebru: Friends, when I sent this message to my team laughing, I didn't know that this fairytale blog had been shared far & wide & that people actually believed it. I didn't know that until someone asked m…
Timnit Gebru: At a certain point I have to ask myself if I got all this pedigree and spent decades doing research and building things to then spend the rest of my life attempting to come up with good arguments a…
Timnit Gebru: Agents didn't "confer" that is anthropomorphization of computer programs trained to do certain tasks.
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Primary source mail.cyberneticforests.com ↗
Established AI field signal Signal 3d ago
⚡ 2560 h early

Unit distance remarks

5 experts across 3 network communities independently surfaced this.

5 experts 3 communities 1 sources clustered
Ben Recht Suresh Venkatasubramanian Grace James Grimmelmann Benjamin Riley
8 experts discussed this · 47 posts
Colin: I hate that today’s most prominent AI skeptics keep forcing me to argue against them. I yearn to join them in the fight against the booster zealots, wherein there is still plenty of room for legiti…
Colin: The questions available to a skeptic today are kind of esoteric, like “how much should we as a society be willing to pay for theorems”
Ben Recht: The way forward is through the mushy middle. This technology is amazing. It works and breaks in surprising ways. The main boosters are lunatics. And the loudest critics are detached from reality. F…
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Primary source cdn.openai.com ↗
Established AI field signal Analysis 3d ago
⚡ 8 h early
tech-forward future skepticism essay

The Future Is Not Tech-Forward

7 experts across 3 network communities independently surfaced this.

7 experts 3 communities 1 sources clustered
Brian Merchant Taylor Lorenz Eryk Salvaggio Ali Alkhatib Edward Ongweso Jr Frank Pasquale Benjamin Riley
How the network is reacting Experts are approaching this through 3 distinct lenses.
Multiple readings

Policy & governance

1 expert

Rules, institutions and accountability.

“This essay talks about the left's vision for technology, the "alliance" between left and right-wing anti-data center movements, politics of refusal, democratic control over the AI infrastructure buildout, China, industrial policy, and more. www.thetechbubbl…”

Building & implementation

1 expert

How teams are shipping and applying it.

“Note “the possibility of communities forming compacts that establish minimum terms for data center development, allowing them to prevent firms from playing various jurisdictions against one another in a race to the bottom.” www.thetechbubble.info/p/the-futu…”

Research & technical analysis

1 expert

Evidence, methods and technical implications.

“surfacing for a minute to point out this good piece by @edwardongwesojr.com > Refusal is not just some impotent act of nostalgia, and the extent to which we think so is a measure of our contempt for the prospect of taking democratic politics seriously.”

Primary source thetechbubble.info ↗
Established Culture, work & education Development 6d ago
⚡ 8 h early
Alpha School AI Chicago launch

Alpha School wants AI to teach a billion kids. Should it?

5 experts across 3 network communities independently surfaced this.

5 experts 3 communities 1 sources clustered
Shannon Vallor Hypervisible Woodrow Hartzog Benjamin Riley Ben Williamson

“The most Betteridge’s Law headline to ever do it”

“Oh so you really know jack shit about kids, pedagogy, education… www.scientificamerican.com/article/alph...”

6 experts discussed this · 29 posts
Hypervisible : Oh so you really know jack shit about kids, pedagogy, education… www.scientificamerican.com/article/alph...
Hypervisible : This is so offensive I’m kinda speechless.
Hypervisible : Now Carl will tell us how schools are like McDonald’s 🤦🏿‍♂️
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Primary source scientificamerican.com ↗
Established AI field signal Analysis 4d ago
⚡ 1073 h early
Verge essay language versus intelligence AI

Is language the same as intelligence? The AI industry desperately needs it to be

3 experts across 2 network communities independently surfaced this.

3 experts 2 communities 1 sources clustered
nilay patel CJ Benjamin Riley

“Went searching for our piece on this and well (That piece: www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...)”

“Dr. Gopnik can certainly speak for herself, but it is indeed #3 that led me to chime in here, social media providing a forum for debate and all. And, well, once again I can only recur to the established scientific fact that language is not the same as thoug…”

4 experts discussed this · 28 posts
Ian Bogost: I continue to be startled by the "writing is thinking" thing ("popular" among the anti-AI set). Is it, perhaps, a weird perversion of all the Derrida people read for decades? The pure-presence erro…
Ian Bogost: Writing isn't thinking, but rather writing. It's a type of representation that renders ideas into inscription. As a supposed writer, I am HORRIFIED at the idea that I would need to write to think. …
Robin Z: I'm surprised to hear this! My version of writing-is-thinking comes via Merleau-Ponty, but the idea that you compose the thoughts in advance mentally and just print them out in text strikes me as e…
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Primary source theverge.com ↗
Established Culture, work & education Analysis 6d ago
Sal Khan Khanmigo chatbot limits essay

The education of Sal Khan and the limits of his chatbot

1 directory member surfaced this signal.

1 expert 1 community 1 sources clustered
Benjamin Riley

“Here you might say, "maybe Alpha School using AI will do better than Gates and Zuckerberg." Yet already people with a long history of hyping ed-tech and AI to the max are coming to grips with the enduring reality that humans prefer learning from humans. www…”

Primary source chalkbeat.org ↗
Debates gaining attention

What experts are discussing without an anchoring article

2 experts · 20 posts · 6h ago
Benjamin Riley Shriram Krishnamurthi
Multiple readings Research & technical analysis · 1 Questions & unknowns · 1
Shriram Krishnamurthi: Biggest downside to getting my course sites finalized with Claude's help is that EVERY annoyance I have seen, I can now get fixed…so after every hour of work, my todo list is a bit longer than an h…
Benjamin Riley: Hi Shriram. I’m curious if you are familiar with Alpha School? I’m working on a story about it.
Open the thread →
2 experts · 4 posts · 2d ago
Benjamin Riley René Walter
Benjamin Riley: While getting my hair cut, my stylist — also in grad school — tells me she had a guest professor who told her class they need “AI literacy,” which apparently meant having Chat write biographies for…
René Walter: Obviously a generative biography is useful to show shortcomings of AI precisely because you know who you are. AI literacy is not a prompting class, it's about showing the process, and that's a good…
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