

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000
Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna
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.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 11, 2023 • 59min
Episode 5: Sam Bankman-Fried's Future Fund, November 9 2022
Emily and Alex discuss Sam Bankman-Fried's Future Fund, its essay contest, and the problems with using AI for prediction and resource allocation--mere days before the collapse of FTX. Also, we introduce our "What in the Fresh AI Hell?" segment!This episode was recorded on November 9, 2022. Watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.References:Super Forecasting And AIBill Howe - Applied AI in High-Expertise Settings or Curation as ProgrammingSamir Passi and Solon Barocos - "Problem Formulation in Fairness"Vinod Prabharakan, William Isaac, Donald Martin Jr - Participatory Problem Formation for Fairer Machine LearningDavid Ribes, Andrew S Hoffman, Steven C Slota and Geoffrey C Bowker -The Logic of DomainsShoshana Zuboff - The Age of Surveillance CapitalismLee Vinsel on Criti-hype - Notes on Criticism and Technology HypeCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' is out now! Get your copy 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 Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jul 2, 2023 • 1h 4min
Episode 4: Is AI Art Actually 'Art'? October 26, 2022
AI is increasingly being used to make visual art. But when is an algorithmically-generated image art...and when is it just an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of pixels? Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna talk to a panel of artists and researchers about the hype, the ethics, and even the definitions of art when a computer is involved.This episode was recorded in October of 2022. You can watch the video on PeerTube.Dr. Johnathan Flowers is an assistant professor in the department of philosophy at California State University, Northridge. His research interest is at the intersection of American Pragmatism, Philosophy of Disability, and Philosophy of Race, Gender and Sexuality as they apply to socio-technical systems. Flowers also explores the impacts of cultural narratives on the perception and development of sociotechnical systems.Dr. Jennifer Lena is a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she runs the Arts Administration program. She’s published books on music genres, the legitimation of art, and the measurement of culture.Dr. Negar Rostamzadeh is a Senior Research Scientist at Google Responsible AI team. Her recent research is at the intersection of computer vision and sociotechnical research. She studies creative computer vision technologies and the broader social impact of them. Kevin Roose, "An A.I.-Generated Picture Won an Art Prize. Artists Aren’t Happy."Jo Lawson-Tancred, "Robot Artist Ai-Da Just Addressed U.K. Parliament About the Future of A.I. and ‘Terrified’ the House of Lords"Marco Donnarumma, "AI Art Is Soft Propaganda for the Global North"Jane Recker, "U.S. Copyright Office Rules A.I. Art Can’t Be Copyrighted"Richard Whiddington, "Shutterstock Inks Deal With DALL-E Creator to Offer A.I.-Generated Stock Images. Not All Artists Are Rejoicing."Stephen Cave and Kanta Dihal, "The Whiteness of AI"Follow our guests:Dr. Johnathan Flowers - https://twitter.com/shengokai // https://zirk.us/@shengokaiDr. Negar Rostamzadeh - twitter.com/negar_rzDr. Jennifer Lena - https://twitter.com/WITWhat // https://sciences.social/@jenniferclenaCheck out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' is out now! Get your copy 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 Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jun 19, 2023 • 1h 3min
Episode 3: "Can Machines Learn To Behave?" Part 3, September 23, 2022
Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna kick off the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series by reading through, "Can machines learn how to behave?" by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, a Google VP who works on artificial intelligence.This episode was recorded in September of 2022, and is the last of three about Aguera y Arcas' post.You can watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' is out now! Get your copy 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 Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

Jun 19, 2023 • 1h 2min
Episode 2: "Can Machines Learn To Behave?" Part 2, September 6, 2022
Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna kick off the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series by reading through, "Can machines learn how to behave?" by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, a Google VP who works on artificial intelligence.This episode was recorded in September of 2022, and is the second of three about Aguera y Arcas' post.You can also watch the video of this episode on PeerTube.Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' is out now! Get your copy 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 Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

13 snips
May 31, 2023 • 45min
Episode 1: "Can Machines Learn To Behave?" Part 1, August 31, 2022
Technology researchers Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna kick off the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series by reading through, "Can machines learn how to behave?" by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, a Google VP who works on artificial intelligence.This episode was recorded in August of 2022, and is the first of three about Aguera y Arcas' post.Watch the video stream on PeerTube.Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' is out now! Get your copy 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 Ozzy Llinas Goodman.


