Shannon Vallor
LightNews LightNews
banner
shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor
@shannonvallor.bsky.social
16K followers 1.9K following 2.4K posts

Philosopher/AI Ethicist at Univ of Edinburgh, co-Director @technomoralfutures.bsky.social and BRAID @braiduk.bsky.social, author of Technology and the Virtues (2016) and The AI Mirror (2024). Views my own. Trying not to lose it. .. more

Videos

Shannon Vallor is an American philosopher of technology. She is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. She previously taught at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California where she was the Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor of Philosophy and William J. Rewak, S.J. Professor at SCU. .. more

Neuroscience 30%
Computer science 22%
Posts Replies Media Videos

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 11h
Merry Christmas from Edinburgh!

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 1d
Our tree, from which Carol has over ten days methodically stripped most of the ornaments, per her usual bullshit, and the wrapped gifts we can only put out on Christmas Eve while she is napping in the other room, for no more than ten (10) minutes before she wakes up and goes ham on all the ribbons
A lit Christmas tree at night, against windows, with a few ornaments and some wrapped gifts underneath

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 1d
Is there a better omen than meeting a family of gentle wild ponies on your Christmas Eve hike?

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 1d
Every artwork in my house was either made by a friend, or is a monetarily worthless print of an artist I love, and I could not begin to understand caring about the investment value or rarity of an original. It’s enough that I can stare and say ‘a person made this crazy/beautiful/inexplicable thing’

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
*hyperventilates with joy*
bookishsff.bsky.social Bookish Scifi & Fantasy @bookishsff.bsky.social · 2d
The eagerly awaited follow-up to @aptshadow.bsky.social's bestselling Children of Time series, Children of Strife follows our MC as she tries to determine what has happened to her crewmates who left the ship to explore an interstellar ark.

Signed preorder: www.waterstones.com/book/childre...
💙📚🪐
An image of the book cover: a ringed planet in greens and blues with organic-looking growths seeing to sprout from the rings, and a spaceship in the foreground.

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
Congratulations Aidan! Lovely cover too

Reposted by Shannon Vallor

bookishsff.bsky.social
Bookish Scifi & Fantasy @bookishsff.bsky.social · 2d
The eagerly awaited follow-up to @aptshadow.bsky.social's bestselling Children of Time series, Children of Strife follows our MC as she tries to determine what has happened to her crewmates who left the ship to explore an interstellar ark.

Signed preorder: www.waterstones.com/book/childre...
💙📚🪐
An image of the book cover: a ringed planet in greens and blues with organic-looking growths seeing to sprout from the rings, and a spaceship in the foreground.

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
During Christmas week each year we try cooking cuisines that are too challenging to try to learn during work season - 2020 was Ethiopian, 2021 was Oaxacan, 2022 was Sicilian, etc. This year is Iranian/Persian. We made fesenjan stew, freekeh pilaf, & a pistachio cardamom cake. It tastes like Heaven.
A blue plate with a fork and a slice of pistachio cardamom cake with a toasted almond topping. It is 100x tastier than you can imagine from the photo. The cardamom is wafting!

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
No, sorry, I’m calling bullshit. The op you endorsed was *not* a comment on the ‘diversity of human artistic production’. It was very explicitly a dismissal of ‘AI panic’, suggesting that people who resent AI’s harm to artists are in fact just sad about losing a way to control others. You agreed!

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
And what about that single fact brings the original claim’s reductive, myopic generalization (far more myopic even than Veblen’s writing!) any closer to a deep insight into human nature?

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
Yes, people enjoy vastly different kinds of art, for many different reasons

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
I don’t need to apply Veblen, or any particular social theory of choice, to discern or describe fundamental aspects of my own life experience. That certainly includes my raw enjoyment of human art and transportation by its wonder, an experience that extends back to my earliest childhood memories.

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
I’ve read Veblen. And?

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
I’m truly sorry for anyone whose experience of life is so constrained that the statement ‘humans value art only because it lets us control other people, which is all we care about’ seems like a plain unvarnished truth. I mean Jesus dude. I try not to judge others on social media. But what the fuck?

Reposted by Shannon Vallor

davelevitan.bsky.social
Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 2d
Anyone else just hear this lyric banging around their heads all the time these days
It's going to take you people years to recover from all of the damage

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
oh my

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
On my list of places to visit now!

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d
hope I never lose the expat giggles from UK place names that sound very wrong
A cheese shop label for Wookey Hole (England): ‘A rich, nutty cheddar with sweet, earthy aromas’

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Axel Bruns, Martin Paul Eve , and 5 more

bbcnews-uk-rss.bsky.social
Unofficial BBCNews (UK) Bot @bbcnews-uk-rss.bsky.social · 2d
Mystery as hundreds of Victorian shoes wash up on Ogmore beach
Mystery as hundreds of Victorian shoes wash up on Ogmore beach
More than 400 leather hobnailed boots, thought to date back to the 19th Century, have been found.
www.bbc.com

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Richard Price, Stacy D. VanDeveer

malwhere.bzky.team
Holly Jolly Malwhere @malwhere.bzky.team · 2d
Trans instructor: “you didn’t do this assignment”

Supervising professor: “she didn’t do the assignment”

Student: “I didn’t do the assignment”

University: “isn’t there someone you forgot to ask”

some days I just want to scream and scream
parkermolloy.com Parker Molloy @parkermolloy.com · 3d
Worth noting that the student admits that she just threw the thing together in 30 minutes without reading the paper she was supposed to be responding to.

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Steve Peers, Ralf Michaels , and 22 more

parkermolloy.com
Parker Molloy @parkermolloy.com · 3d
Worth noting that the student admits that she just threw the thing together in 30 minutes without reading the paper she was supposed to be responding to.

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 3d
Just found this lovely review of The AI Mirror in Critical Inquiry, from Jaehoon Lee. It's nice to see reviews still coming out!
Critical Inquiry
A journal of Art, Culture and Politics, Published by the University of Chicago
criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu

Reposted by Shannon Vallor

posteurope.bsky.social
Darian Meacham @posteurope.bsky.social · 3d
🚨Two TT posts in Social and Political Philosophy🚨 @maastrichtu.bsky.social | #PhilosophyJobs #Hiring #academicjobs @apaphilosophy.bsky.social @philjobs.org

vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl/job/Maastric...

www.academictransfer.com/en/jobs/3566...
Assistant Professor in Political Philosophy
Assistant Professor in Political Philosophy
vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 3d
nicely done

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Axel Bruns, Anders Nilsson , and 8 more

404media.co
404 Media @404media.co · 3d
iCloud, Mega, and as a torrent. Archivists have uploaded the 60 Minutes episode Bari Weiss spiked.
Archivists Posted the 60 Minutes CECOT Segment Bari Weiss Killed
iCloud, Mega, and as a torrent. Archivists have uploaded the 60 Minutes episode Bari Weiss spiked.
www.404media.co

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 3d
They don’t make them like Montalban anymore!

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 3d
Khan: ‘I am a Superior Being destined to seed worlds with my engineered superintelligence and overly oiled pecs how did I end up stuck in this shitty plastic dime store wreath’

shannonvallor.bsky.social
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 3d
Happy Wreath of Khan season to all who celebrate
The Wreath of Khan (lit holiday wreath with a centre photo of Khan Noonien Singh (1982 Montalban version)

Reposted by Shannon Vallor

hypervisible.blacksky.app
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3d
These rebranding attempts are getting more ridiculous.
The CEO of Microsoft AI says AI chatbots are a powerful way for humans to offload emotions and 'detoxify ourselves'
Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft AI's CEO, has described using AI for guidance on life decisions as "something that the world needs."
www.businessinsider.com

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Rosemary A. Joyce, Caroline T. Schroeder , and 4 more

lollardfish.bsky.social
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 3d
“It turns out that banishing the slur from public discourse was, in fact, important. Because now it’s back and it turns out that it does matter when subtext becomes actual text, when terrible people enable open hatred and bigotry, encouraging others to emulate them, degrading us all.”
Perry: The return of the r-word
"These days, the r-word slur has become a staple of the American right wing, uttered with few professional or social consequences," David M. Perry writes.
www.startribune.com