Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000

After "AI" stopped meaning anything, the hype salesmen moved on to "AI" "agents", those allegedly indefatigable assistants, allegedly capable of operating your software for you -- whether you need to make a restaurant reservation, book a flight, or book a flight to a restaurant reservation. Hugging Face's Margaret Mitchell joins Emily and Alex to help break down what agents actually are, and what to actually worry about. References: PwC launches AI agent operating system to revolutionize AI workflows for enterprises An Open-Source AI Agent for Doing Tasks on the Web Scale AI announces multimillion-dollar defense deal, a major step in U.S. military automation Other references: Why handing over total control to AI agents would be a huge mistake Fully Autonomous AI Agents Should Not be Developed Bender vs. Bubeck: The Great Chatbot Debate: Do LLMs Really Understand? Democratize art Fresh AI Hell: DOGE suggests replacing workers with "AI" (of course) Vape, or the tamagotchi gets it @maaikeverbruggen"AI" for psychotherapy, still bad, still hyped Biology (not) of LLMs Mark Cuban's grifty chatbot @HypervisiblePalate cleanser: "AI is the letdown" https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/tech/apple-ai-artificial-intelligence/index.html Comic relief: "Fortified with AI" Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see. Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily emilymbender.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex alexhanna.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@alex@alexhanna Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Measuring your talk time? Counting your filler words? What about "analyzing" your "emotions"? Companies that push LLM technology to surveil and summarize video meetings are increasingly offering to (purportedly) analyze your participation and assign your speech some metrics, all in the name of "productivity". Sociolinguist Nicole Holliday joins Alex and Emily to take apart claims about these "AI" meeting feedback tools, and reveal them to be just sparkling bossware, with little insight into how we talk. Nicole Holliday is Acting Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley. Quick note: Our guest for this episode had some sound equipment issues, which unfortunately affected her audio quality. Main course: Read AI Review: This AI Reads Emotions During Video Calls Marketing video for Read AIZoom rebrands existing and introduces new generative AI features Marketing video for Zoom Revenue AcceleratorSpeech analysis startup releases AI tool that simulates difficult job interview conversation Fresh AI Hell: Amazon Echo will send all recordings to Amazon beginning March 28 Trump’s NIST no longer concerned with “safety” or “fairness” Reporter Kevin Roose is feeling the bullshit UW’s eScience institute pushing “AI” for information access OpenAI whines about data being too expensive, with a side of Sinophobia Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see. Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily emilymbender.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex alexhanna.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@alex@alexhanna Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Emily and Alex read a terrible book so you don't have to! Come for a quick overview of LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman's opus of magical thinking, 'Superagency: What could possibly go right with our AI future' -- stay for the ridicule as praxis. Plus, why even this tortuous read offers a bit of comfort about the desperate state of the AI boosters. References: The cursèd book itself AI and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Benchmark Militants and Citizens: The Politics of Participatory Democracy in Porto Alegre Fresh AI Hell: Parents rationalizing exposing kids to AI Underage, sexualized celebrity bots Bossware a bad look, actually CalState faculty union opposes AI initiative The kids are alright Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see. Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily emilymbender.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex alexhanna.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@alex@alexhanna Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

In the weeks since January 20, the US information ecosystem has been unraveling fast. (We're looking at you Denali, Gulf of Mexico, and every holiday celebrating people of color and queer people that used to be on Google Calendar.) As the country's unelected South African tech billionaire continues to run previously secure government data through highly questionable LLMs, academic librarian Raina Bloom joins Emily and Alex for a talk about how we organize knowledge, and what happens when generative AI degrades or poison the systems that keep us all accurately -- and contextually -- informed. ​​Raina Bloom is the Reference Services Coordinator for University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. References: OpenAI tries to 'uncensor' ChatGPT Elon Musk's DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts Guardian Media Group announces strategic partnership with OpenAI Elon Musk's AI-fuelled war on human agency Archive version(Post now deleted) A DOGE intern asks Reddit for help with file conversion When is it safe to use ChatGPT in higher education? Raina recommends the table on page 6 of UNESCO's QuickStart guide. Fresh AI Hell: Irish educational body, while acknowledging genAI's problems, still gives LLMs too much credit From haircuts to dress design, AI slop is creating unrealistic expectations that hurt small businesses Attorneys still falling for "AI" search The latest in uncanny valley body horror robotics Google claims to have developed AI "co-scientist" Is AI 'reasoning' or 'pretending'? It's a false ch Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see. Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily emilymbender.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex alexhanna.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@alex@alexhanna Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Sam Altman thinks fusion - particularly a company he's personally invested in - can provide the energy we "need" to develop AGI. Meanwhile, what if we just...put data centers on the Moon to save energy? Alex, Emily, and guest Tamara Kneese pour cold water on Silicon Valley's various unhinged, technosolutionist ideas about energy and the environment. Dr. Tamara Kneese is director of climate, technology and justice at the Data & Society Research Institute Due to some technical issues during our recording, this week's episode is a bit shorter than usual. References: A data center … on the moon?? Sam Altman is banking on fusion Greenland is the new Mars “Regenerative finance” in the crypto era Fears of subprime carbon assets stall crypto mission to save rainforest Corporate carbon offset company accidentally starts devastating wildfire The AI/crypto crossoverAI/crypto crossover no one asked for Blockchains wanted to build a smart city. The state could not sign off on its water rights On petro-masculinity Predatory delay and other myths of sustainable AI Book: Digital Energetics, on Bitcoin/AI computing as a larger energy problem Fresh AI Hell: Fake books about indigenous languages Surveillance company harrasses own employees with cameras Schools SWATing kids based on AI outputs Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see. Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily emilymbender.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex alexhanna.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@alex@alexhanna Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

In January, the United Kingdom's new Labour Party prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced a new initiative to go all in on AI in the hopes of big economic returns, with a promise to “mainline” it into the country’s veins: everything from offering public data to private companies, to potentially fast-tracking miniature nuclear power plants to supply energy to data centers. UK-based researcher Gina Neff helps explain why this flashy policy proposal is mostly a blank check for big tech, and has little to offer either the economy or working people. Gina Neff is executive director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, and a professor of responsible AI at Queen Mary University of London. References: The AI Opportunities Action Plan ‘Mainlined into UK’s veins’: Labour announces huge public rollout of AI Gina Neff: Can democracy survive AI? Labour's AI Action Plan - a gift to the far right Fresh AI Hell: "AI" tool for predicting how Parliament will react to policy proposals "AI" detects age based on hand movements Apple Intelligence misleading summaries of news Book simplification as a service CEO doesn't understand why kid turned AI features of toy off Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see. Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily emilymbender.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex alexhanna.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@alex@alexhanna Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Not only is OpenAI's new o3 model allegedly breaking records for how close an LLM can get to the mythical "human-like thinking" of AGI, but Sam Altman has some, uh, reflections for us as he marks two years since the official launch of ChatGPT. Emily and Alex kick off the new year unraveling these truly fantastical stories. References: OpenAI o3 Breakthrough High Score on ARC-AGI-Pub From the blog of Sam Altman: Reflections More about the ARC Prize o3's environmental impact The brain is a computer is a brain Fresh AI Hell: "Time to Edit" as a metric predicting the singularity (Contributed by Warai Otoko) AI 'tasting' colors An AI...faucet?? Seattle Public Schools calls ChatGPT a "transformative technology" A GitHub pull request closed because change would have been unfriendly to "AI" chat interface Cohere working with Palantir Elsevier rewrites papers with "AI" without telling authors, editors The UK: mainlining AI straight into their veins Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see. Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily emilymbender.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex alexhanna.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@alex@alexhanna Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

It’s been a long year in the AI hype mines. And no matter how many claims Emily and Alex debunk, there's always a backlog of Fresh AI Hell. This week, another whirlwind attempt to clear it, with plenty of palate cleansers along the way. Fresh AI Hell: Part I: Education Medical residency assignments "AI generated" UCLA course "Could ChatGPT get an engineering degree?" AI letters of recommendation Chaser: 'AI' isn't Tinkerbell and we don’t have to clap Part II: Potpourri, as in really rotten AI x parenting Et tu, Firefox? US military tests AI machine gun "Over-indexing" genAI failings AI denying social benefits Chaser: AI 'granny' vs scammers Part III: The Endangered Information Ecosystem Fake Emily quote in LLM-written article Protecting Wikipedia AI: the new plastic Google AI on 'dressing' "AI" archaeology Misinfo scholar used ChatGPT OpenAI erases lawsuit evidence LAT "AI" bias meter WaPo AI search: The Washington Post burns its own archive Chaser: ShotSpotter as art Part IV: Surveillance, AI in science/medicine Apple patents "body data" Chatbots "defeat" doctors Algorithm for healthcare "overuse" "AI friendships" "Can LLMs Generate Novel Research Ideas?" Another LLM for science Chaser: FTC vs Venntel Part V: They tell us to believe the hype Thomas Friedman: AGI is coming Matteo Wong on o1's 'reasoning' WIRED editor: believe the hype Salesforce CEO: The "unlimited age" Chaser: Emily and Alex's forthcoming book! Pre-order THE AI CON: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see. Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily emilymbender.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex alexhanna.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@alex@alexhanna Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Once upon a time, artificial general intelligence was the only business plan OpenAI seemed to have. Tech journalist Brian Merchant joins Emily and Alex for a time warp to the beginning of the current wave of AI hype, nearly a decade ago. And it sure seemed like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and company were luring investor dollars to their newly-formed venture solely on the hand-wavy promise that someday, LLMs themselves would figure out how to turn a profit. Brian Merchant is an author, journalist in residence at the AI Now Institute, and co-host of the tech news podcast System Crash. References: Elon Musk and partners form nonprofit to stop AI from ruining the world How Elon Musk and Y Combinator Plan to Stop Computers From Taking Over Elon Musk's Billion-Dollar AI Plan Is About Far More Than Saving the World Brian’s recent report on the business model of AGI, for the AI Now Institute: AI Generated Business: The rise of AGI and the rush to find a working revenue model Previously on MAIHT3K: Episode 21: The True Meaning of 'Open Source' (feat. Sarah West and Andreas Liesenfeld) Fresh AI Hell: OpenAI explores advertising as it steps up revenue drive If an AI company ran Campbell's Soup with the same practices they use to handle data Humans are the new 'luxury item' Itching to write a book? AI publisher Spines wants to make a deal A company pitched Emily her own 'verified avatar' Don't upload your medical images to chatbots A look at a pilot program in Georgia that uses 'jailbots' to track inmates You can check out future livestreams on Twitch. Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order your copy now. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily emilymbender.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex alexhanna.bsky.socialdair-community.social/@alex@alexhanna Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

From Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg, billionaires with no education expertise keep using their big names and big dollars to hype LLMs for classrooms. Promising ‘comprehensive AI tutors', or just ‘educator-informed’ tools to address understaffed classrooms, this hype is just another round of Silicon Valley pointing to real problems -- under-supported school systems -- but then directing attention and resources to their favorite toys. Former educator and DAIR research fellow Adrienne Williams joins to explain the problems this tech-solutionist redirection fails to solve, and the new ones it creates. Adrienne Williams started organizing in 2018 while working as a junior high teacher for a tech owned charter school. She expanded her organizing in 2020 after her work as an Amazon delivery driver, where many of the same issues she saw in charter schools were also in evidence. Adrienne is a Public Voices Fellow on Technology in the Public Interest with The OpEd Project in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, as well as a Research Fellow at both (DAIR) and Just Tech. References: Funding Helps Teachers Build AI Tools Sal Khan's 2023 Ted Talk: AI in the classroom can transform education Bill Gates: My trip to the frontier of AI education Cory Booker Hates Public SchoolsCory Booker's track record on educationBook: Access is Capture: How Edtech Reproduces Racial Inequality Book: Disruptive Fixation: School Reform and the Pitfalls of Techno-Idealism Previously on MAIHT3K: Episode 26, Universities Anxiously Buy Into the Hype (feat. Chris Gilliard) Episode 17: Back to School with AI Hype in Education (feat. Haley Lepp) Fresh AI Hell: "Streamlining" teaching Google, Microsoft and Perplexity are promoting scientific racism in 'AI overviews' 'Whisper' medical transcription tool used in hospitals is making things up X's AI bot can't tell the difference between a bad game and vandalism Prompting is not a substitute for probability measurements in large language models Yet another 'priestbot' Self-driving wheelchairs at Seattle-Tacoma International Airpot You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

The company behind ChatGPT is back with bombastic claim that their new o1 model is capable of so-called "complex reasoning." Ever-faithful, Alex and Emily tear it apart. Plus the flaws in a tech publication's new 'AI hype index,' and some palette-cleansing new regulation against data-scraping worker surveillance. References: OpenAI: Learning to reason with LLMs How reasoning worksGPQA, a 'graduate-level' Q&A benchmark systemFresh AI Hell: MIT Technology Review's AI 'AI hype index' CFPB Takes Action to Curb Unchecked Worker Surveillance You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Technology journalist Paris Marx joins Alex and Emily for a conversation about the environmental harms of the giant data centers and other water- and energy-hungry infrastructure at the heart of LLMs and other generative tools like ChatGPT -- and why the hand-wavy assurances of CEOs that 'AI will fix global warming' are just magical thinking, ignoring a genuine climate cost and imperiling the clean energy transition in the US. Paris Marx is a tech journalist and host of the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us. He also recently launched a 4-part series, Data Vampires, (which features Alex) about the promises and pitfalls of data centers like the ones AI boosters rely on. References: Eric Schmidt says AI more important than climate goals Microsoft's sustainability report Sam Altman's “The Intelligence Age” promises AI will fix the climate crisis Previously on MAIHT3K: Episode 19: The Murky Climate and Environmental Impact of Large Language Models, November 6 2023 Fresh AI Hell: Rosetta to linguists: "Embrace AI or risk extinction" of endangered languages A talking collar that you can use to pretend to talk with your pets Google offers synthetic podcasts through NotebookLM An AI 'artist' claims he's losing millions of dolalrs from people stealing his work University hiring English professor to teach...prompt engineering You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Can “AI” do your science for you? Should it be your co-author? Or, as one company asks, boldly and breathlessly, “Can we automate the entire process of research itself?” Major scientific journals have banned the use of tools like ChatGPT in the writing of research papers. But people keep trying to make “AI Scientists” a thing. Just ask your chatbot for some research questions, or have it synthesize some human subjects to save you time on surveys. Alex and Emily explain why so-called “fully automated, open-ended scientific discovery” can’t live up to the grandiose promises of tech companies. Plus, an update on their forthcoming book! References: Sakana.AI keeps trying to make 'AI Scientist' happen The AI Scientist: Towards Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific DiscoveryCan LLMs Generate Novel Research Ideas? A Large-Scale Human Study with 100+ NLP Researchers How should the advent of large language models affect the practice of science? Relevant research ethics policies: ACL Policy on Publication Ethics Committee On Public Ethics (COPE) The Vancouver Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work Fresh AI Hell: Should journals allow LLMs as co-authors? Business Insider "asks ChatGPT" Otter.ai sends transcript of private after-meeting discussion to everyone "Could AI End Grief?" AI generated crime scene footage "The first college of nursing to offer an MSN in AI" FTC cracks down on "AI" claims You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Did your summer feel like an unending barrage of terrible ideas for how to use “AI”? You’re not alone. It's time for Emily and Alex to clear out the poison, purge some backlog, and take another journey through AI hell -- from surveillance of emotions, to continued hype in education and art. Fresh AI Hell: Synthetic data for Hollywood test screenings NaNoWriMo's AI fail AI is built on exploitationNaNoWriMo sponsored by an AI writing companyNaNoWriMo's AI writing sponsor creates bad writingAI assistant rickrolls customers Programming LLMs with "fiduciary duty" Canva increasing prices thank to "AI" features Ad spending by AI companies Clearview AI hit with largest GDPR fine yet 'AI detection' in schools harms neurodivergent kids CS prof admits unethical ChatGPT use College recruiter chatbot can't discuss politics "The AI-powered nonprofits reimagining education" Teaching AI at art schools Professors' 'AI twins' as teaching assistants A teacherless AI classroom Another 'AI scientist' LLMs still biased against African American English AI "enhances" photo of Black people into white-appearing Eric Schmidt: Go ahead, steal data with ChatGPT The environmental cost of Google's "AI Overviews" Jeff Bezos' "Grand Challenge" for AI in environment What I found in an AI-company's e-waste xAI accused of worsening smog with unauthorized gas turbines Smile surveillance of workers AI for "emotion recognition" of rail passengers Chatbot harassment scenario reveals real victim AI has hampered productivity "AI" in a product description turns off consumers Is tripe kosher? It depends on the religion of the cow. You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Dr. Clara Berridge joins Alex and Emily to talk about the many 'uses' for generative AI in elder care -- from "companionship," to "coaching" like medication reminders and other encouragements toward healthier (and, for insurers, cost-saving) behavior. But these technologies also come with questionable data practices and privacy violations. And as populations grow older on average globally, technology such as chatbots is often used to sidestep real solutions to providing meaningful care, while also playing on ageist and ableist tropes. Dr. Clara Berridge is an associate professor at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work. Her research focuses explicitly on the policy and ethical implications of digital technology in elder care, and considers things like privacy and surveillance, power, and decision-making about technology use. References: Care.Coach's 'Avatar' chat program* For Older People Who Are Lonely, Is the Solution a Robot Friend? Care Providers’ Perspectives on the Design of Assistive Persuasive Behaviors for Socially Assistive Robots Socio-Digital Vulnerability ***Care.Coach's 'Fara' and 'Auger' products, also discussed in this episode, are no longer listed on their site. Fresh AI Hell: Apple Intelligence hidden prompts include the command "don't hallucinate" The US wants to use facial recognition to identify migrant children as they age Family poisoned after following fake mushroom book It is a beautiful evening in the neighborhood, and you are a horrible Waymo robotaxi Dynamic pricing + surveillance hell at the grocery store Chinese social media's newest trend: imitating AI-generated videos You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

The Washington Post is going all in on AI -- surely this won't be a repeat of any past, disastrous newsroom pivots! 404 Media journalist Samantha Cole joins to talk journalism, LLMs, and why synthetic text is the antithesis of good reporting. References: The Washington Post Tells Staff It’s Pivoting to AI: "AI everywhere in our newsroom." Response: Defector Media Promotes Devin The Dugong To Chief AI Officer, Unveils First AI-Generated Blog The Washington Post's First AI Strategy Editor Talks LLMs in the Newsroom Also: New Washington Post CTO comes from Uber The Washington Post debuts AI chatbot, will summarize climate articles. Media companies are making a huge mistake with AI When ChatGPT summarizes, it does nothing of the kind 404 Media: 404 Media Now Has a Full Text RSS Feed 404 Media: Websites are Blocking the Wrong AI Scrapers (Because AI Companies Keep Making New Ones) Fresh AI Hell: "AI" Alan Turning Our Opinions Are Correct: The Turing Test is Bullshit (w/Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender)Google advertises Gemini for writing synthetic fan letters Dutch Judge uses ChatGPT's answers to factual questions in ruling Is GenAI coming to your home appliances? AcademicGPT (Galactica redux) "AI" generated images in medical science, again (now retracted) You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

Could this meeting have been an e-mail that you didn't even have to read? Emily and Alex are tearing into the lofty ambitions of Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, who claims the future is a LLM-powered 'digital twin' that can attend meetings in your stead, make decisions for you, and even be tuned to different parameters with just the click of a button. References: The CEO of Zoom wants AI clones in meetings All-knowing machines are a fantasy A reminder of some things chatbots are not good for Medical science shouldn't platform automating end-of-life care The grimy residue of the AI bubble On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs: a work rant Fresh AI Hell: LA schools' ed tech chatbot misusing student data AI "teaching assistants" at Morehouse "Diet-monitoring AI tracks your each and every spoonful" A teacher's perspective on dealing with students who "asked ChatGPT" Are Swiss researchers affiliated with Israeli military industrial complex? Swiss institution asks ChatGPT Using a chatbot to negotiate lower prices You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

We regret to report that companies are still trying to make generative AI that can 'transform' healthcare -- but without investing in the wellbeing of healthcare workers or other aspects of actual patient care. Registered nurse and nursing care advocate Michelle Mahon joins Emily and Alex to explain why generative AI falls far, far short of the work nurses do. Michelle Mahon is the Director of Nursing Practice with National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the country. Michelle has over 25 years of experience as a registered nurse in various settings. In her role with NNU, Michelle works with nurses across the United States to protect the vital role that RNs play in health care as direct caregivers and patient advocates. References: NVIDIA's AI Bot Outperforms Nurses: Here's What It Means Hippocratic AI's roster of 'genAI healthcare agents' Related: Nuance's DAX Copilot Fresh AI Hell: "AI-powered health coach" will urge you to drink water with lemon 50% of 2024 Q2 VC investments went to "AI" Thanks to AI, Google no longer claiming to be carbon-neutral Click work "jobs" soliciting photos of babies through teens Screening of film "written by AI" canceled after backlash Putting the AI in IPA You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

When is a research paper not a research paper? When a big tech company uses a preprint server as a means to dodge peer review -- in this case, of their wild speculations on the 'dangerous capabilities' of large language models. Ali Alkhatib joins Emily to explain why a recent Google DeepMind document about the hunt for evidence that LLMs might intentionally deceive us was bad science, and yet is still influencing the public conversation about AI. Ali Alkhatib is a computer scientist and former director of the University of San Francisco’s Center for Applied Data Ethics. His research focuses on human-computer interaction, and why our technological problems are really social – and why we should apply social science lenses to data work, algorithmic justice, and even the errors and reality distortions inherent in AI models. References: Google DeepMind paper-like object: Evaluating Frontier Models for Dangerous Capabilities Fresh AI Hell: Hacker tool extracts all the data collected by Windows' 'Recall' AI In NYC, ShotSpotter calls are 87 percent false alarms "AI" system to make callers sound less angry to call center workers Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 3.5 evaluated for "graduate level reasoning" OpenAI's Mira Murati says "AI" will have 'PhD-level' intelligence OpenAI's Mira Murati also says AI will take some creative jobs, maybe they shouldn't have been there to start out with You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.

You've already heard about the rock-prescribing, glue pizza-suggesting hazards of Google's AI overviews. But the problems with the internet's most-used search engine go way back. UCLA scholar and "Algorithms of Oppression" author Safiya Noble joins Alex and Emily in a conversation about how Google has long been breaking our information ecosystem in the name of shareholders and ad sales. References: Blog post, May 14: Generative AI in Search: Let Google do the searching for you Blog post, May 30: AI Overviews: About last week Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, by Safiya Noble Fresh AI Hell: AI Catholic priest demoted after saying it's OK to baptize babies with Gatorade National Archives bans use of ChatGPT ChatGPT better than humans at "Moral Turing Test" Taco Bell as an "AI first" company AGI by 2027, in one hilarious graph You can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute. Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us! Emily https://twitter.com/EmilyMBenderhttps://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderhttps://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex https://twitter.com/@alexhannahttps://dair-community.social/@alexhttps://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon. Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.