It's been 4 months since we've cleared the backlog of Fresh AI Hell and the bullshit is coming in almost too fast to keep up with. But between a page full of awkward unicorns and a seeming slowdown in data center demand, Alex and Emily have more good news than usual to accompany this round of catharsis.AI Hell:LLM processing like human language processing (not)Jack Clark predicting AGISebastian Bubeck says predictions in "sparks" paper have already come trueWIRED puff piece on the AmodeisFoundation agents & leaning in to the computational metaphor (Fig 1, p14)Chaser: Trying to recreate the GPT unicornThe WSJ has an AI bot for all your tax questionsChatGPT libelAOL.com uses autogenerated captions about attempted murderAI coding tools fix bugs by adding bugs"We teach AGI to think, so you don't have to"(from: Turing.com)MAGA/DOGE paints teachers as glorified babysitters in push for AIChaser: How we are NOT using AI in the classroomAI benchmarks are self-promoting trash — but regulators keep using themDOGE is pushing AI tool created as "sandbox" for federal testing"Psychological profiling" based on social mediaThe tariffs and ChatGPT"I was not informed that Microsoft would sell my work to the Israeli military and government"Microsoft fires engineers who protested Israeli military use of its toolsPulling back on data centers, Microsoft editionAbandoned data centers, China editionBill Gates: 2 day workweek coming thanks to AI...replacing doctors and teachers??Chaser: Tesla glue fail schadenfreudeChaser: Let's talk about the genie tropeChaser: We finally met!!!Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order 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 Christie Taylor.
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1:00:25
"AI" Agents, A Single Point of Failure (with Margaret Mitchell), 2025.03.31
After "AI" stopped meaning anything, the hype salesmen moved on to "AI" "agents", those allegedly indefatigable assistants, allegedly capable of operating your software for you -- whether you need to make a restaurant reservation, book a flight, or book a flight to a restaurant reservation. Hugging Face's Margaret Mitchell joins Emily and Alex to help break down what agents actually are, and what to actually worry about.References:PwC launches AI agent operating system to revolutionize AI workflows for enterprisesAn Open-Source AI Agent for Doing Tasks on the WebScale AI announces multimillion-dollar defense deal, a major step in U.S. military automationOther references:Why handing over total control to AI agents would be a huge mistakeFully Autonomous AI Agents Should Not be DevelopedBender vs. Bubeck: The Great Chatbot Debate: Do LLMs Really Understand?Democratize artFresh AI Hell:DOGE suggests replacing workers with "AI" (of course)Vape, or the tamagotchi gets itVia @maaikeverbruggen"AI" for psychotherapy, still bad, still hypedBiology (not) of LLMsMark Cuban's grifty chatbotVia @HypervisiblePalate cleanser: "AI is the letdown"https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/tech/apple-ai-artificial-intelligence/index.htmlComic relief: "Fortified with AI"Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order 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 Christie Taylor.
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1:03:02
Linguists Versus 'AI' Speech Analysis (with Nicole Holliday), 2025.03.17
Measuring your talk time? Counting your filler words? What about "analyzing" your "emotions"? Companies that push LLM technology to surveil and summarize video meetings are increasingly offering to (purportedly) analyze your participation and assign your speech some metrics, all in the name of "productivity". Sociolinguist Nicole Holliday joins Alex and Emily to take apart claims about these "AI" meeting feedback tools, and reveal them to be just sparkling bossware, with little insight into how we talk.Nicole Holliday is Acting Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley.Quick note: Our guest for this episode had some sound equipment issues, which unfortunately affected her audio quality.Main course:Read AI Review: This AI Reads Emotions During Video CallsMarketing video for Read AIZoom rebrands existing and introduces new generative AI featuresMarketing video for Zoom Revenue AcceleratorSpeech analysis startup releases AI tool that simulates difficult job interview conversationFresh AI Hell:Amazon Echo will send all recordings to Amazon beginning March 28Trump’s NIST no longer concerned with “safety” or “fairness”Reporter Kevin Roose is feeling the bullshitUW’s eScience institute pushing “AI” for information accessOpenAI whines about data being too expensive, with a side of SinophobiaCheck out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order 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 Christie Taylor.
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1:00:28
The Anti-Bookclub Tackles 'Superagency', 2025.03.03
Emily and Alex read a terrible book so you don't have to! Come for a quick overview of LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman's opus of magical thinking, 'Superagency: What could possibly go right with our AI future' -- stay for the ridicule as praxis. Plus, why even this tortuous read offers a bit of comfort about the desperate state of the AI boosters.References:The cursèd book itselfAI and the Everything in the Whole Wide World BenchmarkMilitants and Citizens: The Politics of Participatory Democracy in Porto AlegreFresh AI Hell:Parents rationalizing exposing kids to AIUnderage, sexualized celebrity botsBossware a bad look, actuallyCalState faculty union opposes AI initiativeThe kids are alrightCheck out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order 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 Christie Taylor.
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1:00:00
The War on Knowledge (with Raina Bloom), 2025.02.24
In the weeks since January 20, the US information ecosystem has been unraveling fast. (We're looking at you Denali, Gulf of Mexico, and every holiday celebrating people of color and queer people that used to be on Google Calendar.) As the country's unelected South African tech billionaire continues to run previously secure government data through highly questionable LLMs, academic librarian Raina Bloom joins Emily and Alex for a talk about how we organize knowledge, and what happens when generative AI degrades or poison the systems that keep us all accurately -- and contextually -- informed.Raina Bloom is the Reference Services Coordinator for University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries.References:OpenAI tries to 'uncensor' ChatGPTElon Musk's DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cutsGuardian Media Group announces strategic partnership with OpenAIElon Musk's AI-fuelled war on human agencyArchive version(Post now deleted) A DOGE intern asks Reddit for help with file conversionWhen is it safe to use ChatGPT in higher education? Raina recommends the table on page 6 of UNESCO's QuickStart guide.Fresh AI Hell:Irish educational body, while acknowledging genAI's problems, still gives LLMs too much creditFrom haircuts to dress design, AI slop is creating unrealistic expectations that hurt small businessesAttorneys still falling for "AI" searchThe latest in uncanny valley body horror roboticsGoogle claims to have developed AI "co-scientist"Is AI 'reasoning' or 'pretending'? It's a false chCheck out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order 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 Christie Taylor.
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.
USA