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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 9h

In two recent conversations with very thoughtful journalists, I was asked about the apparent ‘schism’ between those making a lot of noise…

medium.com

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 9h

This.

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 10h

One side, "AI 2027" is led by a bunch of privileged white people working at the companies causing the other side (AI con/Empire of AI).

One side, the "AI is gonna be so powerful if you don't let US be the AGI builders" is making money from stealing data, killing the environment & exploiting labor.

Elinor🎗️ @ COLM 🍁 @elinorpd.bsky.social · 13h

bsky.app/profile/mari...

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Reposted by Emily M. Bender

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 10h

One side, "AI 2027" is led by a bunch of privileged white people working at the companies causing the other side (AI con/Empire of AI).

One side, the "AI is gonna be so powerful if you don't let US be the AGI builders" is making money from stealing data, killing the environment & exploiting labor.

Elinor🎗️ @ COLM 🍁 @elinorpd.bsky.social · 13h

bsky.app/profile/mari...

Slide with “we are here” in bottom left with an arrow pointing top right towards two groups of words: “AI2027” & “everyone dies” and then “AI con” “AI snake oil” “Empire of AI”

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 12h

If your invited keynote speaker works for a company started because OpenAI wasn't basing its work enough on science fiction and said speaker uncritically cites TESCREAList, fictional work masquerading as science, you might not have organized a serious academic gathering.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 12h

Thank you!

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 19h

I mean, I guess if people are going around spouting bullshit about "reasoning machines" they probably would feel insulted when someone calls it out. But that's a them problem.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 1d

New favorite octopus fact

ChrisP @wordsmithgetxo.bsky.social · 1d

In an old ad for board game Scattergories in Spain a player was shown flouncing out while anothet said “OK, we’ll accept ‘octopus’ as a pet”.
“Aceptamos pulpo” has now entered the language in the meaning of “that’s a bit of a stretch but let’s go with it just for the sake of argument”.

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Reposted by Emily M. Bender

ChrisP @wordsmithgetxo.bsky.social · 1d

In an old ad for board game Scattergories in Spain a player was shown flouncing out while anothet said “OK, we’ll accept ‘octopus’ as a pet”.
“Aceptamos pulpo” has now entered the language in the meaning of “that’s a bit of a stretch but let’s go with it just for the sake of argument”.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 2d

Or here:

www.youtube.com/live/l-OWi6V...

Text version pp41-45 here:
doi.org/10.54675/KEC...

Digital Learning Week 2025

YouTube video by UNESCO

www.youtube.com

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 2d

No, I don't "AI" represents a useful or essential skill set. What's needed is the ability to think critically about automation.

You might find some useful arguments in our book (w/ @alexhanna.bsky.social )

thecon.ai

THE AI CON

How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want

thecon.ai

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 2d

Funny typo, dude. Also, see my previous reply to you.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 2d

Maybe check who you're talking to before jumping in with the mansplaining.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 2d

Gah. That's both predictable and awful. Also probably contrary to the ACL's Publication Ethics Policy (both any meta reviewer doing that, and the authors' actions).

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Reposted by Emily M. Bender

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

The "AI" research community:

1) Claims to be building "everything machines", doesn't acknowledge that that means what they're doing is untestable (see Gebru & Torres 2024)

firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...

>>

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Reposted by Emily M. Bender

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

Oh FFS. Because what overburdened peer review systems really need is more noise between the reviewers & ACs. Yeah, that's the ticket.

aaai.org/aaai-launche...

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Screenshot of AAAI automated review announcement reading:

1. Supplementary First-Stage Reviews: LLM-generated reviews will be included as one component of the
initial review stage, providing an additional perspective alongside traditional human expert evaluations.
2. Discussion Summary Assistance: LLMs will assist the Senior Program Committee (SPC) members by
summarizing reviewer discussions, helping to highlight key points of consensus and disagreement among
human reviewers.

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Reposted by Emily M. Bender

Teresa Heffernan @tjheffernan.bsky.social · 3d

Just what academic research needs...more AI slop to deal with. Honestly!

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

Oh FFS. Because what overburdened peer review systems really need is more noise between the reviewers & ACs. Yeah, that's the ticket.

aaai.org/aaai-launche...

>>

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

6) Wants the rest of us to believe that their work should now be incorporated into everything we do, in every sphere of our lives.

NO THANK YOU.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

5) Is now ready (at least at AAAI) to use synthetic text extruding machines as part of their "scientific" peer review process (AAAI 2025)

aaai.org/aaai-launche...

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

4) Pretends that they have to have the ability to push preprints into the world immediately upon drafting (I guess because their value is incredibly perishable; see Bender 2023)

medium.com/@emilymenonb...

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

3) Has extremely selective and presumably high prestige conferences (NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, AAAI) but orients towards arXiv and regularly cites arXiv versions of even published papers

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

2) Plays leaderboard games instead of doing serious evaluation (see Raji et al 2021)

datasets-benchmarks-proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/2021/h...

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

The "AI" research community:

1) Claims to be building "everything machines", doesn't acknowledge that that means what they're doing is untestable (see Gebru & Torres 2024)

firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...

>>

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

I'd say this speaks to the (abysmal) scientific standards of "AI" research.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

For a satirical take, see:

bsky.app/profile/shah...

Shahan Ali Memon @shahanmemon.bsky.social · 4d

The future of peer review is here.

Introducing Nature Instant!

We've automated rejection so you can get disappointed faster. Because why wait 6 months for reviewer 2 when you can get roasted by an #AI in seconds?

Here is how it works.

#AI4Science #PeerReview #FictionScience #FiSci #AAAI #ScAISci

Showing a fictitious system for submitting manuscripts called "Nature Instant" showing bot choices for authors to choose from as initial AI-based peer reviewers. The bots are trained on real human reviewer data.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 3d

A careful, measured approach to ensuring quality peer review would not start from the premise that synthetic text extruding machines have anything to add!

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