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...
Episode 45: Billionaires, Influencers, and Ed Tech (feat. Adrienne Williams), November 18 2024
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 ToolsSal Khan's 2023 Ted Talk: AI in the classroom can transform educationBill Gates: My trip to the frontier of AI educationBackground: Cory Booker Hates Public SchoolsBackground: Cory Booker's track record on educationBook: Access is Capture: How Edtech Reproduces Racial InequalityBook: Disruptive Fixation: School Reform and the Pitfalls of Techno-IdealismPreviously 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" teachingGoogle, Microsoft and Perplexity are promoting scientific racism in 'AI overviews''Whisper' medical transcription tool used in hospitals is making things upX's AI bot can't tell the difference between a bad game and vandalismPrompting is not a substitute for probability measurements in large language modelsYet another 'priestbot'Self-driving wheelchairs at Seattle-Tacoma International AirpotYou can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us!Emily Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilyMBender Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex Twitter: https://twitter.com/@alexhanna Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@alex Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.
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Episode 44: OpenAI's Ridiculous 'Reasoning', October 28 2024
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 LLMsHow 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 SurveillanceYou can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us!Emily Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilyMBender Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex Twitter: https://twitter.com/@alexhanna Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@alex Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.
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Episode 43: AI Companies Gamble with Everyone's Planet (feat. Paris Marx), October 21 2024
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 goalsMicrosoft's sustainability reportSam Altman's “The Intelligence Age” promises AI will fix the climate crisisPreviously on MAIHT3K: Episode 19: The Murky Climate and Environmental Impact of Large Language Models, November 6 2023Fresh AI Hell:Rosetta to linguists: "Embrace AI or risk extinction" of endangered languagesA talking collar that you can use to pretend to talk with your petsGoogle offers synthetic podcasts through NotebookLMAn AI 'artist' claims he's losing millions of dolalrs from people stealing his workUniversity hiring English professor to teach...prompt engineeringYou can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us!Emily Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilyMBender Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex Twitter: https://twitter.com/@alexhanna Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@alex Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.
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Episode 42: Stop Trying to Make 'AI Scientist' Happen, September 30 2024
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' happenThe AI Scientist: Towards Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific DiscoveryCan LLMs Generate Novel Research Ideas? A Large-Scale Human Study with 100+ NLP ResearchersHow should the advent of large language models affect the practice of science?Relevant research ethics policies:ACL Policy on Publication EthicsCommittee On Public Ethics (COPE)The Vancouver Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly WorkFresh 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" claimsYou can check out future livestreams at https://twitch.tv/DAIR_Institute.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown. Follow us!Emily Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilyMBender Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex Twitter: https://twitter.com/@alexhanna Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@alex Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social Music by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Christie Taylor.
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Episode 41: Sweating into AI Fall, September 9 2024
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 screeningsNaNoWriMo's AI failAI is built on exploitationNaNoWriMo sponsored by an AI writing companyNaNoWriMo's AI writing sponsor creates bad writingAI assistant rickrolls customersProgramming LLMs with "fiduciary duty"Canva increasing prices thank to "AI" featuresAd spending by AI companiesClearview AI hit with largest GDPR fine yet'AI detection' in schools harms neurodivergent kidsCS prof admits unethical ChatGPT useCollege recruiter chatbot can't discuss politics"The AI-powered nonprofits reimagining education"Teaching AI at art schoolsProfessors' 'AI twins' as teaching assistantsA teacherless AI classroomAnother 'AI scientist'LLMs still biased against African American EnglishAI "enhances" photo of Black people into white-appearingEric Schmidt: Go ahead, steal data with ChatGPTThe environmental cost of Google's "AI Overviews"Jeff Bezos' "Grand Challenge" for AI in environmentWhat I found in an AI-company's e-wastexAI accused of worsening smog with unauthorized gas turbinesSmile surveillance of workersAI for "emotion recognition" of rail passengersChatbot harassment scenario reveals real victimAI has hampered productivity"AI" in a product description turns off consumersIs 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 Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilyMBender Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/emilymbender.bsky.social Alex Twitter: https://twitter.com/@alexhanna Mastodon: https://dair-community.social/@alex Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social 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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