When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
@emilymbender A fascinating paper, which I need to read again more slowly to fully appreciate its theses.
How can I respond to your article without appearing to "mansplain"? (FWIW, I've been adjacent to the "AI" R&D field for decades, and have worked on several attempts to product-ize research prototypes, in machine learning, natural languages processing, deductive databases; but I'm far from being an expert in any of these (although I've worked with experts), let alone something as general as "AI", and my non-expertise will no doubt be indistinguishable from "mansplaining".)
That is, if you wish to have a conversation with a semi-expert.
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
@emilymbender@dair-community.social Mind sending me a pdf? My university's shib is misbehaving.
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@jlperuyero My dude, I am literally posting the encyclopedia entry that I wrote on this topic -- each of those headings is expanded. And yet, you feel the need to correct what I am saying? I'd be astonished at the hubris but then I remember this is Mansplainodon, so yeah.
@emilymbender @jlperuyero being a woman and having opinions about tech is an incredible experience. some random ass dude will literally come out of nowhere to "uhm, actually" you on everything from the mildest take to YOUR FUCKING ACADEMIC PAPER on the topic. every time.
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@emilymbender@dair-community.social Mind sending me a pdf? My university's shib is misbehaving.
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
@emilymbender what if you run an open source AI locally on your machine? Then it wouldn’t centralise power. Right?
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
@emilymbender Read your preprint. Great work - I definitely need to go through some of the papers you cited.
(You would really think the word "Contents" would convey to people that the words in the image are not the entirety of what you wrote, but alas)
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
@emilymbender REAL AI (artificial intelligence) is the ultimate goal of machine learning. What is marketed as AI is Automated Incompetence based upon very smart and valuable language prediction modeling using stolen data. It is rather important to differentiate between the two. Your writing is a excellent description of what is currently being marketed.
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Preprint available from my publications page:
@emilymbender Looks great, thank you for sharing the preprint!
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@emilymbender REAL AI (artificial intelligence) is the ultimate goal of machine learning. What is marketed as AI is Automated Incompetence based upon very smart and valuable language prediction modeling using stolen data. It is rather important to differentiate between the two. Your writing is a excellent description of what is currently being marketed.
@wbpeckham Something tells me you didn't actually read the article.
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
Professor Bender,
I read your prepublication article with great interest. One thought it stirred for me is that the harms of the “AI” frame may be strengthened by the older “arms race” frame.
I was at Harvey Mudd when Edward Teller visited and argued, somewhat surprisingly, that excessive secrecy had damaged American science. His view was that classified work drove away some of the best researchers, slowed open correction, and still failed to prevent leakage.
That seems relevant to AI now. “Arms race” language does not merely describe policy. It changes who participates, what work becomes respectable, where accountability goes, and which institutions accumulate power.
My own experience across early Internet development, classified systems work, venture-funded technology, and institutional exclusion has made me increasingly suspicious of any technical framing that hides labor, concentrates authority, or prevents open critique.
Your article gave me a sharper vocabulary for that concern.
Terri Gilbert
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@wbpeckham Something tells me you didn't actually read the article.
@emilymbender If it requires clicking on a link, and if I didn't request it, I never do.
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@emilymbender If it requires clicking on a link, and if I didn't request it, I never do.
@wbpeckham Well then, you are awfully confident in replying to something you didn't read. (And yes, you look like a mansplaining fool.)
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@wbpeckham Well then, you are awfully confident in replying to something you didn't read. (And yes, you look like a mansplaining fool.)
@emilymbender And yet, what I did see of your writing I found compelling and worth complimenting. I guess that makes me worth criticizing.
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@emilymbender And yet, what I did see of your writing I found compelling and worth complimenting. I guess that makes me worth criticizing.
@wbpeckham for this interaction, yes
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
@emilymbender This is going to be a really good reference to use for a presentation I will make next week for arguments against AI in game development, and this breakdown of the word itself in this paper will be super helpful to get a good footing and to be very specific about wlhat "AI" we are talking about in different contexts.
Thanks a lot for sharing! (Btw, can I refer to this paper and cite you in the presentation for quotes and paraphrasing?)
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@emilymbender This is going to be a really good reference to use for a presentation I will make next week for arguments against AI in game development, and this breakdown of the word itself in this paper will be super helpful to get a good footing and to be very specific about wlhat "AI" we are talking about in different contexts.
Thanks a lot for sharing! (Btw, can I refer to this paper and cite you in the presentation for quotes and paraphrasing?)
@glitchypixel yes please do so!
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
We going to wind up slow walking whether we come to it through wisdom or folly. Ethics is not a grass root, it is a cornerstone and they left it out on purpose.
I'm not sure enough of what passes for leadership remains to fight for the future. They all seem rather infected with a lethal combo of nihilism and fatalism.
I no longer expect the courts to help, sadly.
Does your paper present a solve? Is there a pre-print?
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We going to wind up slow walking whether we come to it through wisdom or folly. Ethics is not a grass root, it is a cornerstone and they left it out on purpose.
I'm not sure enough of what passes for leadership remains to fight for the future. They all seem rather infected with a lethal combo of nihilism and fatalism.
I no longer expect the courts to help, sadly.
Does your paper present a solve? Is there a pre-print?
@emilymbender Wish we could find a way to standing for generational harm and class action. What's happening in education right now certainly qualifies and it seems no one is listening to those teachers.
#Retrolanguage now confirmed by a report out of The Guardian, too. Still looking for first reports of linguistic competency loss (not cognitive offloading, actual flattening of thought>word translation) but likely no one paying for that let alone double blind.
History will not be kind, IMO.🪔
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
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T tanyakaroli@expressional.social shared this topic
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When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money".
But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings:
@emilymbender thanks for sharing your preprint. Weizenbaum's ELIZA and the participants, "very human tendency to attribute understanding" makes me think how kind most humans are. We tend toward accepting speech as genuine which is unfortunately a tendency being abused by modern LLMs.
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J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
all the way down, and that’s why wankers love 
it *so much!*