The DSR Network Siliconsciousness: The AI Con: A Conversation with Dr. Alex Hanna and Dr. Emily Bender
May 9, 2025
In this enlightening discussion, Dr. Alex Hanna, a sociologist and director at the Distributed AI Research Institute, teams up with Dr. Emily Bender, a professor of linguistics at the University of Washington. They delve into the hype surrounding AI, questioning whether it's fueling inequality. The conversation takes on the complexities of AI terminology, warning against oversimplification that can obscure risks. They also tackle how biases in technology reinforce systemic issues and critique big tech’s influence over policy, urging a rethinking of the future we want.
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Episode notes
AI Is A Marketing Term
- The term "artificial intelligence" is a vague marketing label used for various unrelated technologies.
- It's crucial to clarify what we mean when we discuss AI to have meaningful conversations.
Critique of Large Language Models
- We are against large language models that generate synthetic text without true understanding.
- These models falsely suggest they have minds, threatening jobs and raising ethical issues.
Focus On Automation, Not AI
- Talking about AI as autonomous reasoning often obscures the real issue of automation.
- We should focus on what tasks are automated and their implications, not mislead with the AI label.
