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?
@emilymbender This is going to be a really good reference to use form 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 specifibwhen we are talking about.
Thanks a lit for sharing! (Btw, can I refer to this paper and cite you in the presentation for quotes and paraphrasing?)
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
@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.
@wbpeckham Something tells me you didn't actually read the article.
@emilymbender If it requires clicking on a link, and 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.)
@emilymbender what if you run an open source AI locally on your machine? Then it wouldn’t centralise power. Right?
@emilymbender@dair-community.social Mind sending me a pdf? My university's shib is misbehaving.
@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 show as "mansplaining".)
@emilymbender "Shift accountability" is always the first thing any psychopath notices about science.
@emilymbender I find myself wondering, can we create AI that enhances human labour, that strengthens accountability, that decentralises power? Are @DAIR or anyone else you know working on that? And if so, how can I get involved?
when people ask me what AI means, I say
A senior PhD with some programming skills said: thanks to AI, I was able to do in a few hours what normally takes a week
or
Good programmer: I'm not that strong in python, so when I need a python "snippet" I find AI saves me a lot of time
or
Senior and IMO very good engineer overseeing a staff of 25 people:
If you don't have AI skills, or are unwilling to learn, we are not gonna hire you - and that is not next year, it is today
or
65 yro female neighbor, college educated: I use AI all the time, it is so helpful
shrugs
@emilymbender Thank you for continuing to clear up our understanding of the expression "AI", and esp. in important reference sources like OUP. I find I often have to reach for very authoritative sources to back up perspectives that goes against the mainstream infatuation with chatbots.
@emilymbender
As the old joke goes:
- If you're broke, you do statistics.
- If you have a research grant, you do machine learning.
- If you're a venture capitalist, you do #AI.
And given how the term “AI” has inflated like a third-world currency – what we have no does not merit the term, it's just “generative models” – one may add:
- If you're a Silicon Valley startup, you do #AGI.
@emilymbender Artificial data collection. Intelligence is data collection in English. So is the CIA not a very smart US agency, but the data collection agency for the US. Intelligenz is in German beyond that. Therefore AI is not smart.
@emilymbender don't forget: AI is automated bias and discrimination for usual or unusual reasons.
