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title: Cheap science, real harm: the cost of replacing human participation with synthetic data author: Abeba Birhane abstract: Driven by the goals of augmenting diversity, increasing speed, reducing cost, the use of synthetic data as a replacement for human participants is gaining traction in AI research and product development. This talk critically examines the claim that synthetic data can “augment diversity,” arguing that this notion is empirically unsubstantiated, conceptually flawed, and epistemically harmful. While speed and cost-efficiency may be achievable, they often come at the expense of rigour, insight, and robust science. Drawing on research from dataset audits, model evaluations, Black feminist scholarship, and complexity science, I argue that replacing human participants with synthetic data risks producing both real-world and epistemic harms at worst and superficial knowledge and cheap science at best

I wrote this brief talk on why “augmenting diversity” with LLMs is empirically unsubstantiable, conceptually flawed, and epistemically harmful and a nice surprise to see the organisers have made it public

synthetic-data-workshop.github.io/papers/13.pdf

Elon's little serfs are quite literally begging journalists to come back because every publicly available source of data shows people have fled the platform and young people won't use it.

They are literally begging regular people to come back. Don't do it! It is a website by and for actual Nazis!

i’ve been saying AIs main utility to capitalists is to allow them to bring back all the racism sexism ableism transphobia and every other bigotry under the sun we’ve managed to mitigate in the last century and go “computer did it 🤷‍♀️” when called out for it

Anything that attempts to prioritize truth over disinformation is inherently a threat to the US government.

All of the companies that make the software I use are increasing their prices, to account for an "investment" in AI.

I'm sat here imagining how my clients would feel if I added 30% to each invoice, because I "really got into gambling".

MIT study finds AI can already replace 11.7% of U.S. workforce Artificial intelligence can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. labor market, across finance, health care and professional services, according to MIT's study.

Headline: "AI can replace 11.7% of workforce"

Actual study: Anthropic paid MIT to use a "labor simulation tool" that said 11.7% of TASKS could be done by AI

Software engineering needs a reckoning and a professionalism. It needs actual teeth with which individual workers can use to push back and say "no, I won't put my name on this work". It needs the structure in place for software to be held to a standard of quality befitting its societal criticality

Please watch this video with a university professor explaining how AI is schools less equitable and less safe for Black students.

Some thoughts on why OpenAI et Al should be held accountable for all of the slop that comes out of their systems.

comic strip with call and response text. who are we? CEOs what do we want? AI! AI to do what? We don't know! When do we want it? Right now!

every company in 2025

A chart showing where the 15 main AI companies get and spend their money. The arrows show that the money flows out and back to themselves.

This is how you do wash trading. All these companies are investing in each other paying each other bits of the same trillion dollars in order to make it look like they’re so close to AGI so investors will keep giving them money to lose.

This is also known as a Junkie’s promise.

Microsoft Terminates Elite Israeli Intelligence Unit’s Access to AI and Storage Services The tech giant’s move, which suspends the use of parts of its proprietary software by Israel’s Unit 8200, came after months of escalation by organizers and activists within the company.

Microsoft suspends the use of parts of its proprietary software by Israel Defense Forces, after months of escalation by organizers & activists.

@maximillianalvarez.bsky.social reports on the incredible, historic development in this worker-led revolt.

inthesetimes.com/article/micr...

I am not a "tech critic". I am an antifascist, a feminist, an anticapitalist, an engineer. My criticism of tech flows from my politics and values. Not from a desire to save or destroy tech. Tech is an expression of power and that's what the whole conversation is about.

The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Era of DEI - Anil Dash A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

We continue working for fairness and justice for everyone, regardless of attempts to shame us back into the closet.

The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Era of DEI by @anildash.com: www.anildash.com/2025/10/07/d...

It is easy to forget how amazing most tech services are, the levels of availability we get today are still high. But when things go wrong, even in smaller orgs, it is harder to restore due to poor management decisions sidelining or booting out experience staff. We might be annoying but we know stuff

"I have a decent fluency in LLMs, and they have utility, but the absurd degree of over-hype, the way they're being forced on everyone, and the insistence on ignoring the many valid critiques about them make it very difficult to focus on legitimate uses where they might add value."

That idea that culture eats strategy for breakfast rears its ugly head again. With Altmann, Zuck, Thiel, Bezos, M*sk, etc. leading the culture in tech, so much of what may be useful is made poisonous to society at large thanks to unbridled greed.

"ending remote work" is such a terrible, hostile, anti-worker thing that so many organizations have decided they need to do in order to subjugate their workforce further, and I pray it marks the beginning of a new and robust labor movement. senseless cruelty

Listen up, @pantheon.io: if you still host the websites of Heritage Foundation & their cursèd Project 2025 cuz of contractual BS, the least you can do is donate *100% of Heritage Foundation payments* to organizations that are working to protect communities targeted by Project 2025. And publicize it.

This is the ADF that Pantheon defended hosting a few years ago. There's a difference between platforming ideas you don't agree with, and enabling right wing terror and the dismantling of democracy.

Still not sure Pantheon decision-makers know the difference. Or maybe they don't care?

Being scared of being vulnerable is real

Constantly maneuvering to make sure the other person is always at a disadvantage is predatory

Would be a good time to shut down Dreamforce. If I have friends who are still speaking there, this is a good reason to cancel.

These techbro douches are shit terrible at their jobs, & at being nerds. They misunderstand the media they claim to love, & they're terrible at building things— because they are, at base, incurious, & lazy. They should be snubbed every time they enter a room & anyone who fêtes them, viciously mocked

How Microsoft Workers Helped Halt a Major Contract With the Israeli Military A grassroots campaign successfully pressured the tech monopoly to take an unprecedented step toward suspending its complicity in the Gaza genocide.

Tech workers in the most corporate, nerdy, non-union, Northface-wearing-ass environment you can imagine have been putting their jobs, safety, and even immigration status on the line to try to stop a genocide, writes @maximillianalvarez.bsky.social. www.thenation.com/article/acti...

Did they forget garbage in garbage out?

How Signal’s Meredith Whittaker Remembers SignalGate: ‘No Fucking Way’ The Signal Foundation president recalls where she was when she heard Trump cabinet officials had added a journalist to a highly sensitive group chat.

I loved talking to Signal's @meredithmeredith.bsky.social, who is such a consistent, clear voice of sanity (and always a great interview).

We talked about (of course) SignalGate, what AI means for Signal, why tech bros continue to be such a disappointment, and much more. Read, listen, etc!

Tech profiteers keep acting like we don't all know this

Don’t waste much time thinking about any ideology or policy reason for the H-1B visa change.

This is so tech companies will have to pay Trump for exemptions. Same as they paid him for tariff exemptions. It’s just a standard mob shakedown.

Who could’ve predicted this, other than every single critical data studies scholar, who’ve been highlighting data bias issues for years and years?
Given this previous knowledge, it’s criminal that this technology has been deployed at scale. A triumph of willful ignorance and wishful thinking.

i’m a believer in ineffective altruism. i think that everyone in america should be issued a vga to s-video cable adapter and a bale of hay