Charlie

Give us strength, Oh Lord, to let our children starve.

Me too. I’m a huge fan of Emily Bender’s work, and of approaching synthetic text extrusion as critically as possible. I found this story in a charity shop today and read it immediately when I got home. I’m blown away that I’d never come across it before.

Quite unbelievable that it was written even before the Dartmouth conference. Stonker of a last line too.

Really, truly amazing that OpenAI wants us to believe that they are worth a trillion dollars but also they are so desperate for revenue that they created an infinite SlopTok app that opens them up to a billion lawsuits just so that they can maybe someday make it even worse by filling it with ads.

Learning and Laughter on Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 — Civics of Technology Civics of Technology Announcements Next Tech Talk: The next Tech Talk will be held on October 7 at 8:00 Eastern Time. Register here or on our events page. Come join our community in an info...

I drafted this @civicsoftech.bsky.social post a few weeks ago and what was true then is true now: we can and should resist AI hype with laughter - and @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social show us how to combine serious analysis with serious fun on Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000.

«We should stop giving AI boosters the benefit of the doubt. They are indexing their fortunes - and mortaging ours - on a future that doesn’t exist and that won’t suit us at all.»

The AI Con, by @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social .

I suggest you read anything by @emilymbender.bsky.social on this, particularly the AI Con and her co-authored papers on LLMs and search

18 Lawyers Caught Using AI Explain Why They Did It Lawyers blame IT, family emergencies, their own poor judgment, their assistants, illness, and more.

When the second case of a lawyer getting caught using synthetic text extruding machines hit the news, I wondered: Don't these people gossip?? I would have thought the first case would be so embarrassing as to make things very clear.

www.404media.co/18-lawyers-c...

>>

“THE TEMPTATION TO resign ourselves to resignation is never stronger than at a time of overlapping crises. The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations.”

I’d go further and say everyone involved in policymaking around the technologies marketed as ‘AI’ in all sectors, not just in universities! I literally carry my copy of The AI Con around in my backpack and whip it out to make sure people in meetings make a note of it…

Everyone involved in committees and policymaking around genAI in universities should be required to listen to at least one episode of Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 with @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social before every meeting.

www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/

National Linguistics Day 2025

Free Babels for schools

📅 A reminder that National Linguistics Day is coming up in November! @linguisticshq.bsky.social
📚 Get a free set of Babels for your school, college or library to celebrate

📧 Contact babelthelanguagemagazine@gmail.com

#kewstoke #sandbay #autumn

Autumn 🍂

Linda is amazing

Generally agree but also they’re not ‘lying’. These machines are not designed with any ‘truth’ in mind; they are purely synthetic text extrusion machines.

Still jealous! Glad it was a good one - look forward to hearing all about it

There is certainly not a dearth of coffee shops in Streatham. Do your research.

Sticking with la la cafe and having a far superior coffee and snack now.

Yeah I was disgusted to see it and had an astoundingly horrible conversation with an idiot who told me ‘about time’ and that Streatham was dead, while I pointed out to him the hundreds of thriving local businesses on the high road. It was such a dog whistle and I called him out. He didn’t deny it.

I know everyone is consumed with other news, but this is a big fucking deal: The Trump administration says that IUDs and the Pill are actually abortions.

Here's what USAID told the NYT about the $10m in birth control they plan to destroy.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/h...

I mean, it’s real in that she and her company seem to intend to output this much slop. The rest of it is not- people will not be consuming it. And it seems like she used some synthetic text extruder to generate her own quotations….

Wish Jeanine Wright would read the AI Con, for a better understanding of the word ‘Luddite’ at the very least!

found out what former Wondery COO Jeanine Wright is up to: flooding the internet with unlistenable AI podcasts

Her company has put out around 156,000 AI podcast episodes in two years and has averaged about 64 listens per podcast total in that time (less than one download a week)

Thinking a lot lately about how quickly terms/concepts that I've otherwise reached for ("AI literacy", "Abundance", "Harm reduction") have been co-opted and bastardized by opportunistic capital.

@emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social: really feel the loneliness you mention at the end of The AI Con of frequently being the only critical voice in a room. I feel like I get perceived as a negative Nancy, rather than someone thoughtful with something to say. Any tips to handle this?

“Westminster isn’t kind to people with accents”

WDC2025 - October 10 2025, Watershed, Bristol, UK WDC is the web conference based in Bristol, taking place in autumn each year. With great speakers and attendees alike.

Friday 10 October, I will be speaking at @webdevconf.com in Bristol.

Tickets and lineup: webdevconf.com

My talk “Death, and how tech forgot about mortality” explores digital existence, archival capture, and the fragility of our technological infrastructures.

#WebDevConf #WDC2025 #uxmichaelco

Linguistics lesson for the day: Accountability is crucial to interpreting language. We make sense of something based on who we believe said it. Synthetic text extruded by LLMs was not said by anyone -- so a crucial step in the chain is broken.

>>

M365 Copilot fails to up productivity in UK government trial : AI tech shows promise writing emails or summarizing meetings. Don't bother with anything more complex

Two trials will be repeated endlessly despite always producing the same results:

1) Does UBI work? (yes)
2) Does AI improve productivity? (no)