The Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute

It's like, you could do that pretend with your kid, just like as a parent and child together. The message that we aren’t good enough with our imagination, I think, is one of the insidious things here.

Alex: Yeah.

Audiogram alt-text continued:

Emily: Just, so here: “I literally just said something like, I’m going to do a voice call with my son and I want you to pretend that you’re an astronaut on the ISS.”

Catch up on the latest episode of Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000!

🎃 🔥 In which @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social tackle another “All Hell” episode! Join them as they work their way through the horrors... 🔥🎃

Listen here: www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis...

dair_institute - Twitch Twitch account for The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR).

Tune in TODAY to the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 live stream!

@alexhanna.bsky.social and @emilymbender.bsky.social
will be talking to Sophie Song about what happens self-professed defenders of workers’ rights turn to chatbots for “research”

TODAY, Nov 17, noon PDT: www.twitch.tv/dair_institute

dair_institute - Twitch Twitch account for The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR).

🚨🎧 Don't miss the next Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 live stream! @alexhanna.bsky.social and @emilymbender.bsky.social will be talking to Sophie Song about what happens self-professed defenders of workers’ rights turn to chatbots for “research”

Mon, Nov 17, noon PDT

www.twitch.tv/dair_institute

Is AI really worth its environmental and societal costs?

Join the discussion with @helsus.bsky.social, our lovely speakers Denise Utochin from @hdsai.sund.ku.dk & Sophie Song from @dairinstitute.bsky.social and panelists from The Good AI Lab and University of Helsinki @helsinki.fi!

These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI Rumman Chowdhury, Timnit Gebru, Safiya Noble, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, and Joy Buolamwini open up about their artificial intelligence fears

“Judgments come with responsibilities. And responsibility lies with humans at the end of the day.” - Joy Buolamwini

www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

An important and insightful article on the societal risks of #AI. (1/x)

#AIEthics #DH

This is what it can look like when research is rooted in lived experience.

A key piece of context on this report is that DAIR researcher Adrienne Williams is a former Amazon delivery driver and organizer herself, and the report builds on many in-depth interviews. ⬇️

Crunching the Numbers (with Decca Muldowney), 2025.10.20 - Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 So-called AI tools are increasingly infiltrating newsrooms, particularly when it comes to data analysis. DAIR writer-in-residence Decca Muldowney joins us to discuss the need for journalists to distin...

🎧 Listen here: www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis...

👀 Or watch the Livestream: peertube.dair-institute.org/w/hhKMYCzzJF...

🎧 NEW: Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast episode 65 - 'Crunching The Numbers' 📈

@emilymbender.bsky.social & @alexhanna.bsky.social talk to journalist @deccamuldowney.bsky.social about how so-called AI tools are infiltrating newsrooms, particularly when it comes to data analysis.

🔗 Below ⬇️

Light yellow background with black text reading: "Second, the use of cameras and other surveillance technologies must be highly constrained within vans. The use of these technologies is making the job–and by extension, our roads–more dangerous, as drivers are many times preoccupied with avoiding infractions over making the necessary split second decisions and maneuvers that actually maintain a safe environment. These tools operate as a vector for driver punishment and surveillance, not safety. Furthermore, none of the technology should be required or allowed on a driver’s personal phone, which gives Amazon and other third party companies the ability to track and collect data from them while on and off duty."

How automated control and surveillance endangers and harms us all from @alexhanna.bsky.social and colleagues at @dairinstitute.bsky.social
drive.google.com/file/d/1yBxy...

Experimental evidence of the effects of large language models versus web search on depth of learning Abstract. The effects of using large language models (LLMs) versus traditional web search on depth of learning are explored. A theory is proposed that when

When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same.

Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow.

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Like, support vector machines and random forests are "AI" when it's convenient for these companies to try and skirt accountability, but when it comes time to do marketing, suddenly "AI" emerged in like 2022 and needs the power resources of a small country to do anything at all.

Who gets to imagine our shared techno-future? All of us do. Artwork Credit: Bryn A-G, @brynstone These pieces were created at a Possible Futures workshop held on Sept. 6, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. View the zine and join future workshops via the link in our bio! —-------—----—-------—----

Who gets to imagine our shared techno-future? All of us do.

Artwork Credit: Bryn A-G, @brynstone

These pieces were created at a Possible Futures workshop held on Sept. 6, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. View the zine and join future workshops via the link in our bio!

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If you're in the Seattle area, join us in stretching our collective imagination muscles.

❤️‍🔥🔥❤️‍🔥🔥❤️‍🔥🔥

The DAIR Zine Library A collection of zines from the DAIR Institute

🌿 In this 3-hour workshop, we'll be coming together to connect and stretch our future-making muscles together. At the end, you can contribute anything you make to a collaborative zine. Check out the zine we made in our last in-person workshop.

🌸 zines.dair-institute.org/possible-fut...

The cover of the zine, "Possible Futures" written in all caps in black at the top, with a white background. Then there is a blue background for most of the rest of the cover, with sketches of people all over the cover.

Left, an excerpt of the zine by Adrienne who is a middle school teacher. There are a bunch of plants and crayons, with the writing." There is as much art as there is science" Right, an excerpt from Margaret Mitchell, AI Researcher, with a bunch of cutouts. One says ";Road to Utopia", another says "Its influence begins in the plastic years". "Always Buy" "More Performance." "Order these now." "With open eyes and open minds, we can see so much more," and there is a picture of a yellow butterfly. Then more writing, "We are fierce curious, strong" "Giving back, climb mountains howl with the wind.""

POSSIBLE FUTURES WORKSHOP

🗣️ Looking for a fun, hopeful activity to stretch your imaginative muscle?

🌻 If you’re in the Seattle area, @dylnbkr.bsky.social will be hosting a free in person Possible Futures workshop on November 16 @ 2pm PST.

🪴 RSVP at www.eventbrite.com/e/dair-prese... to attend.

I like to say, "turning researchers into fighters and fighters into researchers," following General Baker from the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.

page of the German newspaper Tagesspiegel where Milagros Miceli is feature among other scientists from Berlin

I’ve been included among the "100 Brightest Minds in Berlin's Science," a list published annually by Tagesspiegel and widely celebrated by Berlin universities.

Worker Surveillance and Wage Theft How algorithmic management and workplace surveillance allows corporations to steal wages, intensify poor working conditions, and evade responsibility.

Looks like a crucial new report on Amazon's algorithmic management just dropped - from Adrienne Williams, @alexhanna.bsky.social, and Sandra Barcenas at @dairinstitute.bsky.social

AI Isn’t a Superintelligence. It's a Market in Need of Disclosure. | TechPolicy.Press If AI is going to be governed as a market technology, it must be brought into the market’s accountability machinery, write Dr. Ilan Strauss and Tim O'Reilly.

"If you access the public’s savings at scale, you should meet the public’s disclosure standards."

... seems like a good principle to minimize harmful bubbles

www.techpolicy.press/ai-isnt-a-su...

dair_institute - Twitch Twitch account for The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR).

Tune in at 8pm BST/3pm EDT/12pm PDT today to catch the live recording of the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast.

It's an "All Hell" episode where@emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social run thru the latest nightmare "AI" headlines!

Watch it here:
www.twitch.tv/dair_institute

Join us today!

In our imagined future, research is... At 4S Seattle 2025, we invited participants to fill in the blank on paper stars. Together, these stars form an “imagination constellation”: glimpses into dreams of our alternative techno-futures. View the zine and join future events via the link in our bi

In our imagined future, research is...

At 4S Seattle 2025, we invited participants to fill in the blank on paper stars. Together, these stars form an “imagination constellation”: glimpses into dreams of our alternative techno-futures.

View the zine and join future events via the link in our bi

Who gets to imagine our shared techno-future? All of us do. Artwork Credit: Adrienne, Middle School Teacher These pieces were created at a Possible Futures workshop held on Sept. 6, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. View the zine and join future workshops via the link in our bio! —-------—---

Who gets to imagine our shared techno-future? All of us do.

Artwork Credit: Adrienne, Middle School Teacher

These pieces were created at a Possible Futures workshop held on Sept. 6, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. View the zine and join future workshops via the link in our bio!

—-------—---

this is brilliant work by the folks @dairinstitute.bsky.social I would love to chat with colleagues working on similar research in the EU! I am working on a repository of resistance tactics against the “future of work” with AI 🙏

Crimes like wage theft? 🙃😜 bsky.app/profile/dair...

Check out this powerful report by brilliant colleagues Adrienne Williams, Alex Hanna, and Sandra Barcenas, revealing how Amazon weaponizes technology to exploit its own workers.

Was awesome to be led by @dylnbkr.bsky.social in digging into hands-on imagining of positive technology futures. Not sure I 100% nailed the homework 😅 (at one point I had to be gently nudged to stop focusing on fascism lol), but amazing to be in this space with others.