257 - Guests: Emily Bender & Alex Hanna, Authors, part 1

257 - Guests: Emily Bender & Alex Hanna, Authors, part 1

Author: aiandyou May 19, 2025 Duration: 34:59
This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . When people take a unipolar position that AI is going to be wonderful, or terrible, or inconsequential, they end up painting themselves into a corner where that’s the only story they can allow themselves to express, and that obscures the truth. So for us to do our due diligence in exploring the dimensions of AI, today I am talking with Drs. Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, authors of the upcoming book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want, and also co-hosts of the live podcast Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000. Emily is well known for coining the term “stochastic parrots” in a 2021 paper as a label for generative AI. She is a linguistics professor and director of the Computational Linguistics Laboratory at the University of Washington and was among the inaugural Time AI 100. Alex is a sociologist who looks at how the data that fuels AI technologies exacerbates racial, gender, and class inequality. She is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies. In part 1, we talk about their intentions with the book, cycles of hype and the effects of hype, the dangers of uncritical use of LLMs, “Slow Science”, and academic institutional culture.  All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.        

The conversation around artificial intelligence is often filled with either breathless hype or dire warnings, leaving little room for grounded, practical understanding. Artificial Intelligence and You cuts through that noise. This isn't a lecture series from a distant ivory tower; it's a guided exploration meant for anyone curious about how these tools are reshaping the everyday. Each episode takes a focused look at a single facet of AI, from the algorithms curating your social media feed to the software that might change how you work. We break down complex concepts into clear, relatable terms, asking the questions that actually matter for your decisions and your future. You'll hear straightforward explanations of how different AI systems function, alongside thoughtful discussions about their real-world implications-the ethical dilemmas, the economic shifts, and the personal impacts that rarely make the headlines. The goal of this podcast is to replace confusion with clarity and anxiety with informed perspective. Whether you're a professional navigating new tools, a student planning a career, or simply a person living in an increasingly digital world, these conversations provide the context you need to form your own opinions. Join us as we move beyond the abstract to examine what AI genuinely means for your life, your community, and the kind of world we're all building together, one line of code at a time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Artificial Intelligence and You
Podcast Episodes
305 - Guest: Rob May, Intellectual Troublemaker, part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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303 - Guest: Virginia Dignum, Responsible AI Expert, part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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302 - Guest: Ricky Sethi, Artificial Metacognition Researcher, part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Have you ever thought about your thoughts? About what or how you’re thinking? It gets real meta real fast, doesn’t it? That’s called metacognition, and humans and certain…
301 - Guest: Ricky Sethi, Artificial Metacognition Researcher, part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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299 - Guest: Mark Peres, Civic Entrepreneur, part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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298 - Guest: Holly Elmore, AI Pause Advocate, part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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297 - Guest: Holly Elmore, AI Pause Advocate, part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . In 2023 a global movement called Pause AI started, advocating for a pause in the development of powerful AI, and on the show we have its co-founder, Holly Elmore. Their w…
296 - Guest: Maya Ackerman, Creative AI Pioneer, part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . One of the great wounds people are experiencing around AI is in creativity. Look at the writers’ and actors’ strikes, for example. I continue talking about this very sens…