Health experts: Your synthetic text "AI" overviews are misleading, for example see this about liver function tests. Google: Okay, we'll block "AI" overviews on that query. The product is fundamentally flawed and cannot be "fixed" by patching query by query. A short 🧵>>

the Guardian

‘Dangerous and alarming’: Google removes some of its AI summaries after users’ health put at risk

Guardian investigation finds AI Overviews provided inaccurate and false information when queried over blood tests

The original word of the year (WOTY) from American Dialect Society is always chaos and always fun. This year's winner: slop

American Dialect Society

2025 Word of the Year Is “Slop”

New Orleans Marriott–Jan. 9—The American Dialect Society, in its 36th annual words-of-the-year vote, selected slop as the Word of the Year for ...

"The media has largely let [tech companies] set the terms of the debate, right down to the terminology used in any discussion of these systems." From Nanna Inie and me in Tech Policy Press on how to spot and resist anthropomorphizing language in the discourse about so-called "AI".

Tech Policy Press

We Need to Talk About How We Talk About 'AI'

We share a responsibility to create and use empowering metaphors rather than misleading language, write Emily M. Bender and Nanna Inie.

Worth waiting for! @Alex Hanna and I did a LOT of podcast guesting last spring & summer and this one, one of my favorites, is finally available:

Anthropomorphizing language can be cute when applied to your favorite car, but it helps to muddy the discourse when applied to tech sold as "AI", especially given all the boosters and AGI-cult members peddling their nonsense about imminent artificial minds. New from me & Nanna Inie on Tech Policy Press -- how to spot & revise away from anthropomorphizing language applied to "AI":

Tech Policy Press

We Need to Talk About How We Talk About 'AI'

We share a responsibility to create and use empowering metaphors rather than misleading language, write Emily M. Bender and Nanna Inie.

Finally got around to reading this one and, it's not great. Mostly it's frustrating to see how the muddled logic and motivated reasoning of Yoshua Bengio & co make it hard for journalists to get and convey a clear understanding.

Science

Science fiction warned AI could end humanity. We may soon learn if it's possible.

Tech companies are claiming machines more intelligent than us and capable of having their own agendas are just around the corner.

Short 🧵>>

RE:

Distributed AI Research Community

Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her) (@emilymbender@dair-community.social)

PSA: If someone is posting about behavior being exhausting to the point that they are considering leaving a platform, then doing more of it "as a j...

I've literally had three people reply to this with mansplaining-as-a-joke. To *this*. I'm usually pretty slow to block folks (preferring mute, if anything) but such a clear signal of disrespect for boundaries earns a block with a quickness. View quoted note →

PSA: If someone is posting about behavior being exhausting to the point that they are considering leaving a platform, then doing more of it "as a joke" is neither supportive nor helpful. And also not funny. (This is re *two separate accounts* making a joke about mansplaining mansplaining to me on a post where I had already been mansplained about how to handle mansplaining.)

RE:

Distributed AI Research Community

Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her) (@emilymbender@dair-community.social)

Once again feeling like it's almost not worth posting to Mastodon given the degree of mansplaining that everything I put up here attracts. Why is ...

I appreciate all of the positive feedback to this post, and will do my best to stick around. ... even though this post actually had someone in the replies mansplaining at me about how to deal with mansplaining. View quoted note →

Once again feeling like it's almost not worth posting to Mastodon given the degree of mansplaining that everything I put up here attracts. Why is it so hard to read the whole thread and/or acknowledge with a 'yes and' -- or maybe check who you are replying to/posting at? Gah.