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Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000

76 episodes — Page 2 of 2

Ep 26Episode 26: Universities Anxiously Buy in to the Hype (feat. Chris Gilliard), February 5 2024

Just Tech Fellow Dr. Chris Gilliard aka "Hypervisible" joins Emily and Alex to talk about the wave of universities adopting AI-driven educational technologies, and the lack of protections they offer students in terms of data privacy or even emotional safety.References:Inside Higher Ed: Arizona State Joins ChatGPT in First Higher Ed PartnershipASU press release version: New Collaboration with OpenAI Charts theFuture of AI in Higher EducationMLive: Your Classmate Could Be an AI Student at this Michigan UniversityChris Gilliard: How Ed Tech Is Exploiting StudentsFresh AI Hell:Various: “AI learns just like a kid”Infants' gaze teaches AI the nuances of language acquisitionSimilar from NeuroscienceNewsPolitico: Psychologist apparently happy with fake version of himselfWSJ: Employers Are Offering a New Worker Benefit: Wellness ChatbotsNPR: Artificial intelligence can find your location in photos, worrying privacy expertPalette cleanser: Goodbye to NYC's useless robocop.Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Feb 15, 202459 min

Ep 25Episode 25: An LLM Says LLMs Can Do Your Job, January 22 2024

Is ChatGPT really going to take your job? Emily and Alex unpack two hype-tastic papers that make implausible claims about the number of workforce tasks LLMs might make cheaper, faster or easier. And why bad methodology may still trick companies into trying to replace human workers with mathy-math.Visit us on PeerTube for the video of this conversation.References:OpenAI: GPTs are GPTsGoldman Sachs: The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic GrowthFYI: Over the last 60 years, automation has totally eliminated just one US occupation.Fresh AI Hell:Microsoft adding a dedicated "AI" key to PC keyboards.Dr. Damien P Williams: "Yikes."The AI-led enshittification at DuolingoShot: https://twitter.com/Rahll/status/1744234385891594380Chaser: https://twitter.com/Maccadaynu/status/1744342930150560056University of Washington Provost highlighting “AI”“Using ChatGPT, My AI eBook Creation Pro helps you write an entire e-book with just three clicks -- no writing or technical experience required.”"Can you add artificial intelligence to the hydraulics?"Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Feb 1, 202456 min

Ep 24Episode 24: AI Won't Solve Structural Inequality (feat. Kerry McInerney & Eleanor Drage), January 8 2024

New year, same Bullshit Mountain. Alex and Emily are joined by feminist technosolutionism critics Eleanor Drage and Kerry McInerney to tear down the ways AI is proposed as a solution to structural inequality, including racism, ableism, and sexism -- and why this hype can occlude the need for more meaningful changes in institutions.Dr. Eleanor Drage is a Senior Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Dr. Kerry McInerney is a Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and a Research Fellow at the AI Now Institute. Together they host The Good Robot, a podcast about gender, feminism, and whether technology can be "good" in either outcomes or processes.Watch the video version of this episode on PeerTube.References:HireVue promo: How Innovative Hiring Technology Nurtures Diversity, Equity, and InclusionAlgorithm Watch: The [German Federal Asylum Agency]'s controversial dialect recognition software: new languages and an EU pilot projectWant to see how AI might be processing video of your face during a job interview? Play with React App, a tool that Eleanor helped develop to critique AI-powered video interview tools and the 'personality insights' they offer.Philosophy & Technology: Does AI Debias Recruitment? Race, Gender, and AI’s “Eradication of Difference” (Drage & McInerney, 2022)Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies: Copies without an original: the performativity of biometric bordering technologies (Drage & Frabetti, 2023)Fresh AI HellInternet of Shit 2.0: a "smart" bidetFake AI “students” enrolled at Michigan UniversitySynthetic images destroy online crochet groups“AI” for teacher performance feedbackPalette cleanser: “Stochastic parrot” is the American Dialect Society’s AI-related word of the year for 2023!Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jan 17, 20241h 0m

Ep 23Episode 23: AI Hell Freezes Over, December 22 2023

AI Hell has frozen over for a single hour. Alex and Emily visit all seven circles in a tour of the worst in bite-sized BS.References:Pentagon moving toward letting AI weapons autonomously kill humansNYC Mayor uses AI to make robocalls in languages he doesn’t speakUniversity of Michigan investing in OpenAITesla: claims of “full self-driving” are free speechLLMs may not "understand" output'Maths-ticated' dataLLMs can’t analyze an SEC filingHow GPT-4 can be used to create fake datasetsPaper thanking GPT-4 concludes LLMs are good for scienceWill AI Improve Healthcare? Consumers Think SoUS struggling to regulate AI in healthcareAndrew Ng's low p(doom)Presenting the “Off-Grid AGI Safety Facility”Chess is in the training dataDropBox files now shared with OpenAIUnderline.io and ‘commercial exploitation’Axel Springer, OpenAI strike "real-time news" dealAdobe Stock selling AI-generated images of Israel-Hamas conflictSports Illustrated Published Articles by AI WritersCruise confirms robotaxis rely on human assistance every 4-5 milesUnderage workers training AI, exposed to traumatic contentPrisoners training AI in FinlandChatGPT gives better output in response to emotional language- An explanation for bad AI journalismUK judges now permitted to use ChatGPT in legal rulings.Michael Cohen's attorney apparently used generative AI in court petitionBrazilian city enacts ordinance secretly written by ChatGPTThe lawyers getting fired for using ChatGPTUsing sequences of life-events to predict human livesYour palette-cleanser: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jan 10, 20241h 4m

Ep 22Episode 22: Congressional 'AI' Hearings Say More about Lawmakers (feat. Justin Hendrix), December 18 2023

Congress spent 2023 busy with hearings to investigate the capabilities, risks and potential uses of large language models and other 'artificial intelligence' systems. Alex and Emily, plus journalist Justin Hendrix, talk about the limitations of these hearings, the alarmist fixation on so-called 'p(doom)' and overdue laws on data privacy.Justin Hendrix is editor of the Tech Policy Press.References:TPP tracker for the US Senate 'AI Insight Forum' hearingsBalancing Knowledge and Governance: Foundations for Effective Risk Management of AI (featuring Emily)Hearing charterEmily's opening remarks at virtual roundtable on AISenate hearing addressing national security implications of AIVideo: Rep. Nancy Mace opens hearing with ChatGPT-generated statement. Brennan Center report on Department of Homeland Security: Overdue Scrutiny for Watch Listing and Risk PredictionTPP: Senate Homeland Security Committee Considers Philosophy of AIAlex & Emily's appearance on the Tech Policy Press PodcastFresh AI Hell:Asylum seekers vs AI-powered translation appsUK officials use AI to decide on issues from benefits to marriage licensesPrior guest Dr. Sarah Myers West testifying on AI concentrationCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jan 3, 202457 min

Ep 21Episode 21: The True Meaning of 'Open Source' (feat. Sarah West and Andreas Liesenfeld), November 20 2023

Researchers Sarah West and Andreas Liesenfeld join Alex and Emily to examine what software companies really mean when they say their work is 'open source,' and call for greater transparency.This episode was recorded on November 20, 2023.Dr. Sarah West is the managing director of the AI Now Institute. Her award-winning research and writing blends social science, policy, and historical methods to address the intersection of technology, labor, antitrust, and platform accountability. And she’s the author of the forthcoming book, "Tracing Code."Dr. Andreas Liesenfeld is assistant professor in both the Centre for Language Studies and department of language and communication at Radboud University in the Netherlands. He’s a co-author on research from this summer critically examining the true “open source” nature of models like LLaMA and ChatGPT – concluding.References:Yann LeCun testifies on 'open source' work at MetaMeta launches LLaMA 2Stanford Human-Centered AI's new transparency indexCoverage in The AtlanticEleuther critiqueMargaret Mitchell critiqueOpening up ChatGPT (Andreas Liesenfeld's work)WebinarFresh AI Hell:Sam Altman out at OpenAIThe Verge: Meta disbands their Responsible AI teamArs Technica: Lawsuit claims AI with 90 percent error rate forces elderly out of rehab, nursing homesCall-out of Stability and others' use of “fair use” in AI-generated artA fawning profile of OpenAI's Ilya SutskeCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Nov 30, 20231h 4m

Ep 20Episode 20: Let's Do the Time Warp! (to the "Founding" of "Artificial Intelligence"), November 6 2023

Emily and Alex time travel back to a conference of men who gathered at Dartmouth College in the summer of 1956 to examine problems relating to computation and "thinking machines," an event commonly mythologized as the founding of the field of artificial intelligence. But our crack team of AI hype detectives is on the case with a close reading of the grant proposal that started it all.This episode was recorder on November 6, 2023. Watch the video version on PeerTube.References:"A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence" (1955)Re: methodological individualism, "The Role of General Theory in Comparative-historical Sociology," American Journal of Sociology, 1991Fresh AI Hell:Silly made-up graph about “intelligence” of AI vs. “intelligence” of AI criticismHow AI is perpetuating racism and other bias against Palestinians:The UN hired an AI company with "realistic virtual simulations" of Israel and PalestineWhatsApp's AI sticker generator is feeding users images of Palestinian children holding gunsThe Guardian on the same issueInstagram 'Sincerely Apologizes' For Inserting 'Terrorist' Into Palestinian Bio TranslationsPalette cleanser: An AI-powered smoothie shop shut down almost immediately after opening.OpenAI chief scientist: Humans could become 'part AI' in the futureA Brief History of Intelligence: Why the evolution of the brain holds the key to the future of AI.AI-centered 'monastic academy':“MAPLE is a community of practitioners exploring the intersection of AI and wisdom.”Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Nov 21, 20231h 4m

Ep 20Episode 19: The Murky Climate and Environmental Impact of Large Language Models, November 6 2023

Drs. Emma Strubell and Sasha Luccioni join Emily and Alex for an environment-focused hour of AI hype. How much carbon does a single use of ChatGPT emit? What about the water or energy consumption of manufacturing the graphics processing units that train various large language models? Why even catastrophic estimates from well-meaning researchers may not tell the full story.This episode was recorded on November 6, 2023.References:"The Carbon Footprint of Machine Learning Training Will Plateau, Then Shrink" "The Carbon Emissions of Writing and Illustrating Are Lower for AI than for Humans" The growing energy footprint of artificial intelligence- New York Times coverage: "AI Could Soon Need as Much Electricity as an Entire Country""Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP." "The 'invisible' materiality of information technology." "Counting Carbon: A Survey of Factors Influencing the Emissions of Machine Learning" "AI is dangerous, but not for the reasons you think." Fresh AI Hell:Not the software to blame for deadly Tesla autopilot crash, but the company selling the software.4chan Uses Bing to Flood the Internet With Racist ImagesFollowup from Vice: Generative AI Is a Disaster, and Companies Don’t Seem to Really CareIs this evidence for LLMs having an internal "world model"?“Approaching a universal Turing machine”Americans Are Asking AI: ‘Should I Get Back With My Ex?’Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Nov 8, 20231h 1m

Ep 18Episode 18: Rumors of Artificial General Intelligence Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, October 23 2023

Emily and Alex read through Google vice president Blaise Aguera y Arcas' recent proclamation that "artificial general intelligence is already here." Why this claim is a maze of hype and moving goalposts.References:Noema Magazine: "Artificial General Intelligence Is Already Here." "AI and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Benchmark" "Targeting the Benchmark: On Methodology and Current Natural Language Processing Research""Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing""The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise""Is chess the drosophila of artificial intelligence? A social history of an algorithm" "The logic of domains""Reckoning and Judgment"Fresh AI Hell:Using AI to meet "diversity goals" in modelingAI ushering in a "post-plagiarism" era in writing"Wildly effective and dirt cheap AI therapy."Applying AI to "improve diagnosis for patients with rare diseases."Using LLMs in scientific researchHealth insurance company Cigna using AI to deny medical claims.AI for your wearable-based workoutCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Oct 31, 20231h 0m

Ep 17Episode 17: Back to School with AI Hype in Education (feat. Haley Lepp), September 22 2023

Emily and Alex are joined by Stanford PhD student Haley Lepp to examine the increasing hype around LLMs in education spaces - whether they're pitched as ways to reduce teacher workloads, increase accessibility, or simply "democratize learning and knowing" in the Global South. Plus a double dose of devaluating educator expertise and fatalism about the 'inevitability' of LLMs in the classroom.Haley Lepp is a Ph.D. student in the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. She draws on critical data studies, computational social science, and qualitative methods to understand the rise of language technologies and their use for educational purposes. Haley has worked in many roles in the education technology sector, including curriculum design and NLP engineering. She holds an M.S. in Computational Linguistics from the University of Washington and B.S. in Science, Technology, and International Affairs from Georgetown University.References:University of Michigan debuts 'customized AI services'Al Jazeera: An AI classroom revolution is comingCalifornia Teachers Association: The Future of Education?Politico: AI is not just for cheatingExtra credit: "Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning" by Audrey WattersFresh AI Hell:AI generated travel article for Ottawa -- visit the food bank! Microsoft Copilot is “usefully wrong”* Response from Jeff Doctor“Ethical” production of “AI girlfriends”Withdrawn AI-written preprint on millipedes resurfaces, causing alarm among myriapodological communityNew York Times: How to Tell if Your A.I. Is Conscious* Response from VentureBeat: Today'Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Oct 4, 20231h 1m

Ep 16Episode 16: Med-PaLM or Facepalm? A Second Opinion On LLMs In Healthcare (feat. Roxana Daneshjou), August 28, 2023

Alex and Emily are taking another stab at Google and other companies' aspirations to be part of the healthcare system - this time with the expertise of Stanford incoming assistant professor of dermatology and biomedical data science Roxana Daneshjou. A look at the gap between medical licensing examination questions and real life, and the inherently two-tiered system that might emerge if LLMs are brought into the diagnostic process.References:Google blog post describing Med-PaLMNature: Large language models encode clinical knowledgePolitico: Microsoft teaming up with Epic Systems to integrate generative AI into electronic medical records softwareMedRXiv: Beyond the hype: large language models propagate race-based medicine (Omiye, Daneshjou, et al)Fresh AI hell:Fake summaries of fake reviewshttps://bsky.app/profile/hypervisible.bsky.social/post/3k4wouet3pg2uSchool administrators asking ChatGPT which books they have to remove from school libraries, given Iowa’s book banMason City Globe Gazette: “Each of these texts was reviewed using AI software to determine if it contains a depiction of a sex act. Based on this review, there are 19 texts that will be removed from our 7-12 school library collections and stored in the Administrative Center while we await further guidance or clarity.”Loquacity and Visible Emotion: ChatGPT as a Policy AdvisorWritten by authors at the Bank of ItalyAI generated school bus routes get students home at 10pmLethal AI generated mushroom-hunting booksHow would RBG respond?Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Sep 28, 20231h 2m

Ep 15Episode 15: The White House And Big Tech Dance The Self-Regulation Tango, August 11 2023

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Emily and Alex tackle the White House hype about the 'voluntary commitments' of companies to limit the harms of their large language models: but only some large language models, and only some, over-hyped kinds of harms.Plus a full portion of Fresh Hell...and a little bit of good news.References:White House press release on voluntary commitmentsEmily’s blog post critiquing the “voluntary commitments”An “AI safety” infused take on regulationAI Causes Real Harm. Let’s Focus on That over the End-of-Humanity Hype“AI” Hurts Consumers and Workers — and Isn’t IntelligentFresh AI Hell:Future of Life Institute hijacks SEO for EU's AI ActLLMs for denying health insurance claimsNHS using “AI” as receptionistAutomated robots in receptionCan AI language models replace human research participants?A recipe chatbot taught users how to make chlorine gasUsing a chatbot to pretend to interview Harriet TubmanWorldcoin Orbs & iris scansMartin Shkreli’s AI for health start upAuthors impersonated with fraudulent books on Amazon/GoodreadsGood News:Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Sep 20, 20231h 4m

Ep 14Episode 14: Henry Kissinger, Machines of War, and the Age of Military AI Hype (feat. Lucy Suchman), July 21 2023

Emily and Alex are joined by technology scholar Dr. Lucy Suchman to scrutinize a new book from Henry Kissinger and coauthors Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher that declares a new 'Age of AI,' with abundant hype about the capacity of large language models for warmaking. Plus close scrutiny of Palantir's debut of an artificial intelligence platform for combat, and why the company is promising more than the mathy-maths can provide.Dr. Lucy Suchman is a professor emerita of sociology at Lancaster University in the UK. She works at the intersections of anthropology and the field of feminist science and technology studies, focused on cultural imaginaries and material practices of technology design. Her current research extends her longstanding critical engagement with the fields of artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction to the domain of contemporary militarism. She is concerned with the question of whose bodies are incorporated into military systems, how and with what consequences for social justice and the possibility for a less violent world.This episode was recorded on July 21, 2023. Watch the video on PeerTube.References:Wall Street Journal: OpEd derived from 'The Age of AI' (Kissinger, Schmidt & Huttenlocher)American Prospect: Meredith Whittaker & Lucy Suchman’s review of Kissinger et al’s bookVICE: Palantir Demos AI To Fight Wars But Says It Will Be Totally Ethical About It Don't Worry About It Fresh AI Hell:American Psychological Association: how to cite ChatGPThttps://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgptSpam reviews & children’s books:https://twitter.com/millbot/status/1671008061173952512?s=20An analysis we like, comparing AI to the fossil fuel industry:https://hachyderm.io/@dalias/110528154854288688AI Heaven from Dolly Parton:https://consequence.net/2023/07/dolly-parton-ai-hologram-comments/Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Sep 13, 20231h 1m

Ep 13Episode 13: Beware The Robo-Therapist (feat. Hannah Zeavin), June 8 2023

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Emily and Alex talk to UC Berkeley scholar Hannah Zeavin about the case of the National Eating Disorders Association helpline, which tried to replace human volunteers with a chatbot--and why the datafication and automation of mental health services are an injustice that will disproportionately affect the already vulnerable.Content note: This is a conversation that touches on mental health, people in crisis, and exploitation.This episode was originally recorded on June 8, 2023. Watch the video version on PeerTube.Hannah Zeavin is a scholar, writer, and editor whose work centers on the history of human sciences (psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychiatry), the history of technology and media, feminist science and technology studies, and media theory. Zeavin is an Assistant Professor of the History of Science in the Department of History and The Berkeley Center for New Media at UC Berkeley. She is the author of, "The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy."References:VICE: Eating Disorder Helpline Fires Staff, Transitions to Chatbot After Unionization… and then pulls the chatbot.NPR: Can an AI chatbot help people with eating disorders as well as another human?Psychiatrist.com: NEDA suspends AI chatbot for giving harmful eating disorder advicePolitico: Suicide hotline shares data with for-profit spinoff, raising ethical questionsDanah Boyd: Crisis Text Line from my perspective.Tech Workers Coalition: Chatbots can't care like we do.Slate: Who's listening when you call a crisis hotline? Helplines and the carceral system.Hannah Zeavin: Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Sep 7, 20231h 0m

Ep 12Episode 12: It's All Hell, May 5 2023

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Take a deep breath and join Alex and Emily in AI Hell itself, as they take down a month's worth of hype in a mere 60 minutes.This episode aired on Friday, May 5, 2023.Watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.References:Terrifying NEJM article on GPT-4 in medicine“Healthcare professionals preferred ChatGPT 79% of the time”Good thoughts from various experts in responseChatGPT supposedly reading dental x-raysChatbots “need” therapistsCEO proposes AI therapist, removes proposal upon realizing there’s regulation:https://twitter.com/BEASTMODE/status/1650013819693944833 (deleted)ChatGPT is more carbon efficient than human writersAsking disinformation machine for confirmation biasGPT-4 glasses to tell you what to say on dates, "Charisma as a Service"Context-aware fill for missing data“Overemployed” with help from ChatGPTPakistani court uses GPT-4 in bail decisionChatGPT in Peruvian and Mexican courtsElon Musk’s deepfake defenseElon Musk's TruthGPTFake interview in German publication revealed as “AI” at the end of the articleCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Aug 29, 20231h 1m

Ep 11Episode 11: A GPT-4 Fanfiction Novella, April 7 2023

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After a hype-y few weeks of AI happenings, Alex and Emily shovel the BS on GPT-4’s “system card,” its alleged “sparks of Artificial General Intelligence,” and a criti-hype heavy "AI pause" letter. Hint: for a good time, check the citations.This episode originally aired on Friday, April 7, 2023.You can also watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.References:GPT-4 system card: https://cdn.openai.com/papers/gpt-4-system-card.pdf“Sparks of AGI” hype: https://twitter.com/SebastienBubeck/status/1638704164770332674And the preprint from Bubeck et al.: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.12712“Pause AI” letter: https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/The “Sparks” paper points to this 1997 editorial in their definition of “intelligence”:https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997mainstream.pdfRadiolab's miniseries, 'G': https://radiolab.org/series/radiolab-presents-gBaria and Cross, "The brain is a computer is a brain.": https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.14042Senator Chris Murphy buys the hype:https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1640186536825061376Generative “AI” is making “police sketches”:https://twitter.com/Wolven/status/1624299508371804161?t=DXyucCPYPAKNn8TtAo0xeg&s=19More mathy math in policing:https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/aurora-police-new-ai-system-bodycam-footage/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitterUser Research without the Users:https://twitter.com/schock/status/1643392611560878086DoNotPay is here to cancel your gym membership:https://twitter.com/BrianBrackeen/status/1644193519496511488?s=20Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Aug 24, 20231h 3m

Ep 10Episode 10: Don't Be A Lawyer, ChatGPT. March 3, 2023

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Alex and Emily are taking AI to court! Amid big claims about LLMs, a look at the facts about ChatGPT, legal expertise, and what the bar exam actually tells you about someone's ability to practice law--with help from Harvard legal and technology scholar Kendra Albert.This episode was first recorded on March 3, 2023.Watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.References:Social Science Research Network paper “written” by ChatGPTJoe Wanzala, “ChatGPT is ideal for eDiscovery”Legal applications for ChatGPT:Shot: GPT-4 'could pass the. bar exam'Chaser: ChatGPT had bigger dreams. "AI for law"“AI can legally run a company”Wired: Generative AI Is Coming for the Lawyers“This is a decision by a Colombian court in Cartagena (dated January, 30, 2023).As far as we know, it is the first time that a judicial decision has been taken by explicitly resorting to #ChatGPT @sama @OpenAI. The Court poses a series of specific questions to #ChatGPT""Don't Be A Lawyer" song from "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"Rep. Ted Lieu introduces legislation written by an LLMDoNotPay offers money to anyone willing to use their AI to argue in courtFresh AI Hell:Vanderbilt University responds to MSU shooting with e-mail written using ChatGPTScience fiction magazine closes submissions due to LLM spamThe 1st International Workshop on Implicit Author Characterization from Texts for Search and RetCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Aug 16, 20231h 6m

Ep 9Episode 9: Call the AI Quack Doctor, February 17, 2023

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Should the mathy-maths be telling doctors what might be wrong with you? And can they actually help train medical professionals to treat human patients? Alex and Emily discuss the not-so-real medical and healthcare applications of ChatGPT and other large language models.Plus another round of fresh AI hell, featuring "charisma as a service," and other assorted reasons to tear your hair out.This episode was first recorded on February 17th of 2023.Watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.References:Glass.ai makes “diagnosis machine”:https://twitter.com/AiBreakfast/status/1620128621821317125?t=Q6tTAOcGAoFJ3Ko9m4EC9g&s=19Percy Liang claims 'PubMedGPT' can pass medical exams:https://crfm.stanford.edu/2022/12/15/pubmedgpt.htmlhttps://twitter.com/percyliang/status/1603469265583353856?s=20&t=SdWeINzUw92pbkTO8OAVqQEmily's reaction to the above:https://twitter.com/emilymbender/status/1603766381807570944?s=20&t=SdWeINzUw92pbkTO8OAVqQChatGPT gets 60 percent of questions right in US Medical Licensing Exam:https://healthitanalytics.com/news/chatgpt-passes-us-medical-licensing-exam-without-clinician-inputAn Apple Watch error is clogging up 911 lines:https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/health/apple-watch-911-emergency-call.htmlChatGPT-assisted diagnosis: Is the future suddenly here?https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/13/chatgpt-assisted-diagnosis/NVIDIA “eye contact” demo:https://twitter.com/Jousefm2/status/1616878021280993284“Theory of the mind":https://twitter.com/LChoshen/status/1623575423652139015?t=Ohc9tzB09pAEddAReLc6mA&s=09Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Aug 8, 20231h 2m

Ep 8Episode 8: The ChatGPT Awakens, January 20, 2023

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New year, new hype? As the world gets swept up in the fervor over ChatGPT of late 2022, Emily and Alex give a deep sigh and begin to unpack the wave of fresh enthusiasm over large language models and the "chat" format specifically.Plus, more fresh AI hell.This episode was recorded on January 20, 2023.Watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.References:Situating Search (Shah & Bender 2022) Related op-ed: https://iai.tv/articles/all-knowing-machines-are-a-fantasy-auid-2334Piantadosi's thread showing ChatGPT writing a program to classify white males as good scientistsFind Anna Lauren Hoffman's publications (though not yet the one we were referring to) here: https://www.annaeveryday.com/publicationsSarah T. Roberts, Behind the Screen Karen Hao's AI Colonialism series Milagros Miceli: https://www.weizenbaum-institut.de/en/spezialseiten/persons-details/p/milagros-miceli/Julian Posada: https://posada.website/“This Isn’t Your Data, Friend”: Black Twitter as a Case Study on Research Ethics for Public Data (Klassen & Fiesler 2022) No Humans Here: Ethical Speculation on Public Data, Unintended Consequences, and the Limits of Institutional Review (Pater, Fiesler & Zimmer 2022) Casey Fiesler's publications: https://caseyfiesler.com/publications/And TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@professorcaseyWhere are human subjects in Big Data research? The emerging ethics divide. (Metcalf & Crawford 2016) Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Aug 4, 20231h 4m

Ep 7Episode 7: There Are Now 15 Competing Evaluation Metrics (ft. Dr. Jeremy Kahn). December 12, 2022

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Emily and Alex are joined by Dr. Jeremy G. Kahn to discuss the distressingly large number of evaluation metrics for artificial intelligence, and some new AI hell.Jeremy G. Kahn has a PhD in computational linguistics, with a focus on information-theoretic and empirical engineering approaches to dealing with natural language (in text and speech). He’s gregarious, polyglot, a semi-auto-didact, and occasionally prolix. He also likes comic books, coffee, progressive politics, information theory, lateral thinking, science fiction, science fact, linear thinking, bicycles, beer, meditation, love, play, and inquiry. He lives in Seattle with his wife Dorothy and son Elliott.This episode was recorded on December 12, 2022.Watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.References:XKCD: StandardsWikidataConGish GallopThe Bender RuleDJ Khaled - You Played YourselfJeff Kao's interrogation of public comment periods.Emily's blog post response to NYT pieceCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jul 26, 20231h 3m

Ep 6Episode 6: Stochastic Parrot Galactica, November 23, 2022

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Emily and Alex discuss MetaAI's bullshit science paper generator, Galactica, along with its defenders. Plus, where could AI actually help scientific research? And more Fresh AI Hell. Watch the video of this episode on PeerTube. References:Imre Lakatos on research programsShah, Chirag and Emily M. Bender. 2022. Situating Search. Proceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR ’22). UW RAISE (Responsibility in AI Systems and Experiences)Stochastic Parrots:Bender, Emily M., Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, and Shmargaret Shmitchell. 2021. On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜. In Proceedings of FAccT 2021, pp.610-623. The Octopus Paper:Bender Emily M. and Alexander Koller. 2020. Climbing towards NLU: On Meaning, Form, and Understanding in the Age of Data. ACL 2020Palestinian man arrested because of bad machine translation.Katherine McKittrick, Dear Science and Other StoriesThe Sokal HoaxSafiya Noble, Algorithms of OppressionLatanya Sweeney, "Discrimination in Online Ad Delivery"Mehtab Khan and Alex Hanna, The Subjects and Stages of AI Dataset Development: A Framework for Dataset Accountability(What is 'sealioning'?)http://wondermark.com/1k62/Grover:Raji, Inioluwa Deborah, Emily M. Bender, Amandalynne Paullada, Emily Denton and Alex Hanna. 2021. AI and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Benchmark. Proceedings of the 35th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2021) Track on Datasets and Benchmarks.Ben Dickson's coverage of Grover:WCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jul 17, 20231h 3m

Ep 5Episode 5: Sam Bankman-Fried's Future Fund, November 9 2022

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Emily and Alex discuss Sam Bankman-Fried's Future Fund, its essay contest, and the problems with using AI for prediction and resource allocation--mere days before the collapse of FTX. Also, we introduce our "What in the Fresh AI Hell?" segment!This episode was recorded on November 9, 2022. Watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.References:Super Forecasting And AIBill Howe - Applied AI in High-Expertise Settings or Curation as ProgrammingSamir Passi and Solon Barocos - "Problem Formulation in Fairness"Vinod Prabharakan, William Isaac, Donald Martin Jr - Participatory Problem Formation for Fairer Machine LearningDavid Ribes, Andrew S Hoffman, Steven C Slota and Geoffrey C Bowker -The Logic of DomainsShoshana Zuboff - The Age of Surveillance CapitalismLee Vinsel on Criti-hype - Notes on Criticism and Technology HypeCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jul 11, 202359 min

Ep 4Episode 4: Is AI Art Actually 'Art'? October 26, 2022

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AI is increasingly being used to make visual art. But when is an algorithmically-generated image art...and when is it just an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of pixels? Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna talk to a panel of artists and researchers about the hype, the ethics, and even the definitions of art when a computer is involved.This episode was recorded in October of 2022. You can watch the video on PeerTube.Dr. Johnathan Flowers is an assistant professor in the department of philosophy at California State University, Northridge. His research interest is at the intersection of American Pragmatism, Philosophy of Disability, and Philosophy of Race, Gender and Sexuality as they apply to socio-technical systems. Flowers also explores the impacts of cultural narratives on the perception and development of sociotechnical systems.Dr. Jennifer Lena is a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she runs the Arts Administration program. She’s published books on music genres, the legitimation of art, and the measurement of culture.Dr. Negar Rostamzadeh is a Senior Research Scientist at Google Responsible AI team. Her recent research is at the intersection of computer vision and sociotechnical research. She studies creative computer vision technologies and the broader social impact of them. Kevin Roose, "An A.I.-Generated Picture Won an Art Prize. Artists Aren’t Happy."Jo Lawson-Tancred, "Robot Artist Ai-Da Just Addressed U.K. Parliament About the Future of A.I. and ‘Terrified’ the House of Lords"Marco Donnarumma, "AI Art Is Soft Propaganda for the Global North"Jane Recker, "U.S. Copyright Office Rules A.I. Art Can’t Be Copyrighted"Richard Whiddington, "Shutterstock Inks Deal With DALL-E Creator to Offer A.I.-Generated Stock Images. Not All Artists Are Rejoicing."Stephen Cave and Kanta Dihal, "The Whiteness of AI"Follow our guests:Dr. Johnathan Flowers - https://twitter.com/shengokai // https://zirk.us/@shengokaiDr. Negar Rostamzadeh - twitter.com/negar_rzDr. Jennifer Lena - https://twitter.com/WITWhat // https://sciences.social/@jenniferclenaCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jul 2, 20231h 3m

Ep 3Episode 3: "Can Machines Learn To Behave?" Part 3, September 23, 2022

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Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna kick off the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series by reading through, "Can machines learn how to behave?" by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, a Google VP who works on artificial intelligence.This episode was recorded in September of 2022, and is the last of three about Aguera y Arcas' post.You can watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jun 19, 20231h 3m

Ep 2Episode 2: "Can Machines Learn To Behave?" Part 2, September 6, 2022

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Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna kick off the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series by reading through, "Can machines learn how to behave?" by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, a Google VP who works on artificial intelligence.This episode was recorded in September of 2022, and is the second of three about Aguera y Arcas' post.You can also watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jun 19, 20231h 1m

Ep 1Episode 1: "Can Machines Learn To Behave?" Part 1, August 31, 2022

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Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna kick off the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series by reading through, "Can machines learn how to behave?" by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, a Google VP who works on artificial intelligence.This episode was recorded in August of 2022, and is the first of three about Aguera y Arcas' post.Watch the video stream on PeerTube.Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

May 31, 202344 min