Artificial Intelligence has too much hype. In this podcast, linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna break down the AI hype, separate fact from ficti...
Petro-Masculinity Versus the Planet (with Tamara Kneese), 2025.01.27
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 InstituteDue 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 fusionGreenland is the new Mars“Regenerative finance” in the crypto eraFears of subprime carbon assets stall crypto mission to save rainforestCorporate carbon offset company accidentally starts devastating wildfireThe AI/crypto crossoverAI/crypto crossover no one asked forBlockchains wanted to build a smart city. The state could not sign off on its water rightsOn petro-masculinityPredatory delay and other myths of sustainable AIBook: Digital Energetics, on Bitcoin/AI computing as a larger energy problemFresh AI Hell:Fake books about indigenous languagesSurveillance company harrasses own employees with camerasSchools SWATing kids based on AI outputsCheck 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 Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex Twitter: @alexhanna Music by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.
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The UK's Misplaced Enthusiasm (with Gina Neff), 2025.01.20
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 AIGina Neff: Can democracy survive AI?Labour's AI Action Plan - a gift to the far rightFresh AI Hell:"AI" tool for predicting how Parliament will react to policy proposals"AI" detects age based on hand movementsApple Intelligence misleading summaries of newsBook simplification as a serviceCEO doesn't understand why kid turned AI features of toy offCheck 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 Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex Twitter: @alexhanna Music by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.
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1:02:12
Sam Altman's Fever Dream, 2025.01.13
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-PubFrom the blog of Sam Altman: ReflectionsMore about the ARC Prizeo3's environmental impactThe 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' colorsAn AI...faucet??Seattle Public Schools calls ChatGPT a "transformative technology"A GitHub pull request closed because change would have been unfriendly to "AI" chat interfaceCohere working with PalantirElsevier rewrites papers with "AI" without telling authors, editorsThe UK: mainlining AI straight into their veinsCheck 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 Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex Twitter: @alexhanna Music by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.
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Episode 47: Hell is Other People's AI Hype, December 9 2024
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: EducationMedical residency assignments"AI generated" UCLA course"Could ChatGPT get an engineering degree?"AI letters of recommendationChaser: 'AI' isn't Tinkerbell and we don’t have to clapPart II: Potpourri, as in really rottenAI x parentingEt tu, Firefox?US military tests AI machine gun"Over-indexing" genAI failingsAI denying social benefitsChaser: AI 'granny' vs scammers Part III: The Endangered Information EcosystemFake Emily quote in LLM-written articleProtecting WikipediaAI: the new plasticGoogle AI on 'dressing'"AI" archaeologyMisinfo scholar used ChatGPTOpenAI erases lawsuit evidenceLAT "AI" bias meterWaPo AI search: The Washington Post burns its own archiveChaser: ShotSpotter as artPart IV: Surveillance, AI in science/medicineApple patents "body data"Chatbots "defeat" doctorsAlgorithm for healthcare "overuse""AI friendships""Can LLMs Generate Novel Research Ideas?"Another LLM for scienceChaser: FTC vs VenntelPart V: They tell us to believe the hypeThomas Friedman: AGI is comingMatteo Wong on o1's 'reasoning'WIRED editor: believe the hypeSalesforce 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 Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex Twitter: @alexhanna Music by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.
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Episode 46: AGI Funny Business (Model), with Brian Merchant, December 2 2024
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 worldHow Elon Musk and Y Combinator Plan to Stop Computers From Taking OverElon Musk's Billion-Dollar AI Plan Is About Far More Than Saving the WorldBrian’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 modelPreviously 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 driveIf an AI company ran Campbell's Soup with the same practices they use to handle dataHumans are the new 'luxury item'Itching to write a book? AI publisher Spines wants to make a dealA company pitched Emily her own 'verified avatar'Don't upload your medical images to chatbotsA look at a pilot program in Georgia that uses 'jailbots' to track inmatesCheck 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 Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Alex Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex Twitter: @alexhanna Music by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.
Artificial Intelligence has too much hype. In this podcast, linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna break down the AI hype, separate fact from fiction, and science from bloviation. They're joined by special guests and talk about everything, from machine consciousness to science fiction, to political economy to art made by machines.
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