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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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The questions experts are actively pulling apart

One card per development. Sources are clustered; expert reactions remain attributable.

Established AI field signal Analysis 4d ago
⚡ 6 h early
essay how to talk AI

How to talk about

9 experts across 2 network communities independently surfaced this.

9 experts 2 communities 1 sources clustered
Emily M. Bender Hypervisible Luke Stark Frank Pasquale Charles Logan Jeffrey Vagle B! 🐝 Cavello (they/them) Dr J. Rosenbaum +1

“For ideas on how to do that, see: buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch... /fin”

“Instead of railing against the latest “I asked Claude” article in a mainstream publication, I’ll just post this.”

2 experts discussed this · 16 posts
Emily M. Bender: 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 >>
Emily M. Bender: In some cases, no doubt, the speaker fully believes that autonomous thinking machines are among us. (Though I said "otherwise serious people" in the prev post, so.) >>
Emily M. Bender: In other cases, I suspect that people feel like they lack the expertise to call bullshit and are repeating what they hear others say. >>
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Primary source buttondown.com ↗
Established AI field signal Analysis 7d ago
AI usefulness insufficient critique essay

"Useful" is not sufficient

3 experts across 2 network communities independently surfaced this.

3 experts 2 communities 1 sources clustered
Emily M. Bender tante Baldur Bjarnason

“"In a burning world we need to hold ourselves and each other to a higher standard. “Useful” is far, far from being good enough." https://tante.cc/2026/07/15/useful-is-not-sufficient/”

““"Useful" is not sufficient” https://tante.cc/2026/07/15/useful-is-not-sufficient/ > Usefulness is not an objective, fully abstract property: A thing is not useful for everyone or in general but mostly just for specific people in specific contexts. And usef…”

3 experts discussed this · 8 posts
tante: "In a burning world we need to hold ourselves and each other to a higher standard. “Useful” is far, far from being good enough." https://tante.cc/2026/07/15/useful-is-not-sufficient/
tante: (Sorry, just a quick note, I'd love to write a longer piece on "useful" because it's such a harmful narrative)
tante: Gotta figure out if I might want to pitch that somewhere or just dump it on the blog ;))
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Primary source tante.cc ↗
Established Culture, work & education Analysis 12d ago
⚡ 5 h early
AI illusions understanding scientific research Nature

Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific research - Nature

2 experts are actively discussing the implications.

1 expert 1 community 1 sources clustered
Emily M. Bender

“I follow @mjcrockett.bsky.social and @lmesseri.bsky.social in believing science (and in fact all scholarship) to be an essentially human activity. (@alexhanna.bsky.social and I write about this in The AI Con, too.) www.nature.com/articles/s41... >>”

2 experts discussed this · 13 posts
Emily M. Bender: A beautiful essay indeed, and great jumping off point for people across all fields of scholarship to reflect on what it is we are doing and why. A short thread >>
Emily M. Bender: I follow @mjcrockett.bsky.social and @lmesseri.bsky.social in believing science (and in fact all scholarship) to be an essentially human activity. (@alexhanna.bsky.social and I write about this in …
Abstract Tesseract: A beautiful essay indeed, and great jumping off point for people across all fields of scholarship to reflect on what it is we are doing and why. A short thread >>
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Primary source nature.com ↗
More conversations

What experts are discussing without an anchoring article

8 experts · 45 posts · 17d ago
Emily M. Bender Alondra Nelson Maxim Raginsky M.J. Crockett Eryk Salvaggio SE Gyges Larry Hunter Jack Stilgoe
M.J. Crockett: Joseph Weizenbaum's 1976 book, Computer Power and Human Reason, has long been out of print - used copies sell for hundreds of dollars. It's wild that this is not more widely available given how muc…
M.J. Crockett: Weizenbaum was an MIT computer scientist who built one of the first chatbots, ELIZA. He wrote the book out of a growing sense of horror as he saw how “extremely short exposures to a relatively simp…
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4 experts · 6 posts · 7d ago
Emily M. Bender Olivia Guest tante Neil Turkewitz
Emily M. Bender: I really appreciate this stance. Too many people try to use "but it's useful" as a counterargument to what we say, for example, in The AI Con. Useful for whom and at what cost (to the user and espe…
tante: I really appreciate this stance. Too many people try to use "but it's useful" as a counterargument to what we say, for example, in The AI Con. Useful for whom and at what cost (to the user and espe…
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2 experts · 15 posts · 17d ago
Emily M. Bender Anthony Moser
Emily M. Bender: Thought upon reading* a review of our book illustrated with an obviously extruded image: (*didn't really read it, because ai;dr -- skimmed down to where the author purported to give their "honest o…
Emily M. Bender: The author misrepresented us as being against all automation and then pointed to AlphaFold and highlighted the Nobel awarded to its developers as evidence of the importance of that project. >>
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