The Marketing Tricks of "Artificial Intelligence"
3/23/202650 min
This week, Sam talks to Emily Bender and Alex Hanna about the marketing ploys of “artificial intelligence,” why ridicule works to keep big tech’s claims in check, and what makes them hopeful for the future. They’re the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.Dr. Alex Hanna is a writer and sociologist of technology, labor, and politics. She’s the Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) and a Lecturer in the School of Information at the University of California Berkeley. Dr. Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington where she is also the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program and affiliate faculty in the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School.They also host the The Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast which “deflates AI hype and draws attention to the real harms of the automation technologies we call ‘artificial intelligence’.” Flood of AI-Generated Submissions ‘Final Straw’ for Small 22-Year-Old Publisher The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want Emily’s cartoon Questioning the Normalization of Surveillance by the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown You Are Not a Parrot at NY Mag YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/UwBZiuH-1QY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsEmily Bender· Guest0:00
People aren't meant to be useful. People are people, and the thing about human rights and human dignity is that we are valuable because we exist, period, and we don't have to justify our existence.
Sam Cole· Host0:11
[upbeat music] Hello and welcome to the 44 Media podcast, where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 44 Media is a journalist-founded company and we need your support. To subscribe, go to 44media.co. As well as bonus content every single week, subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to the best comments, and they get early access to our interview series too, like this one. Gain access to that content at 44media.co. Today, I'm here with Alex Hanna and Emily Bender, authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want, which came out last spring. Unbelievable that it was last spring. It feels like yesterday. Dr. Alex Hanna is a writer and sociologist of technology, labor, and politics. She's the director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute, also known as DAIR, and a lecturer in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Emily M. Bender is a professor of linguistics at the University of Washington, where she is also the faculty director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program and affiliate faculty in the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School. [laughs] Welcome. It's so good to have you both. I'm so excited that we're here today.
Emily Bender· Guest1:27
So fun to be here, and so fun... Like, I listen