Dr Abeba Birhane
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abeba.bsky.social
Dr Abeba Birhane
@abeba.bsky.social
49K followers 820 following 3.7K posts
Founder & PI @aial.ie. Assistant Professor of AI, School of Computer Science & Statistics, @tcddublin.bsky.social

AI accountability, AI audits & evaluation, critical data studies. Cognitive scientist by training. Ethiopian in Ireland. She/her
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abeba.bsky.social
Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Jun 25
New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance

1/
Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature
An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.
www.nature.com
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
bcmerchant.bsky.social
Filling out a banking form that asks for my occupation, and in what I am choosing to consider as a sign of the times, "journalist" is not a selectable option, but "cryptocurrency" is
November 10, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
OSCAR ISAAC, on whether he'd return to "Star Wars":

".. Yeah. I mean, I’d be open to it, although right now I’m not so open to working with Disney. But if they can kinda figure it out and, you know, not succumb to fascism, that would be great."

@variety.com $DIS
variety.com/2025/film/ne...
Oscar Isaac Was ‘Not So Open to Working With Disney’ After Jimmy Kimmel Suspension, Said He’d Return to ‘Star Wars’ if Disney Does ‘Not Succumb to Fascism’
Oscar Isaac was not open to working with Disney after Jimmy Kimmel's suspension and will only return to 'Star Wars' if the studio avoids fascism.
variety.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:28 PM
abeba.bsky.social
apparently the unprecedented wealth and inflcuence big tech is amassing at the cost of the most marginalised is not enough. big tech ceos are not that different from drug cartels

www.irishtimes.com/business/202...
EU set to water down landmark AI Act after pressure from big tech
European Commission proposes pauses to provisions in digital rule book amid concerns over implications for EU competitiveness
www.irishtimes.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
tjheffernan.bsky.social
Brilliant letter...was happy to sign.

Politicians need to stop listening to corporations peddling "magic" machines and start following the research.
November 10, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
bmitra.bsky.social
Proud to be a signatory on this. Please read and sign if you agree. ✍🏽
November 10, 2025 at 5:05 PM
abeba.bsky.social
i love it when people infantilize me 🙄 like, when they "offer an opportunity for me to participate in their X”. what does a Black woman have to do to be treated with some acknowledgement and respect
November 10, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
techviews.bsky.social
"... you relied on the statements of Dario Amodei, Jensen Huang and Sam Altman..."

😆😆😆
November 10, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
serife.bsky.social
A good primer on the more entangled problems with this sort of trash science aka lacking epistemic soundness by Mel Andrews, @abeba.bsky.social, @andrewthesmart.bsky.social on www.cell.com/patterns/ful...
The reanimation of pseudoscience in machine learning and its ethical repercussions
Machine learning has a pseudoscience problem. In this perspective, the authors explore the recent resurgence of deep learning-assisted physiognomy and argue that pseudoscientific and socially harmful ...
www.cell.com
November 10, 2025 at 4:11 AM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
philippmarkolin.bsky.social
Wrote about this robber-mogul playbook in my latest bsky.app/profile/phil...
philippmarkolin.bsky.social Philipp Markolin @philippmarkolin.bsky.social · 2d
New:
The current “AI race” media frenzy, whether framed as productivity revolution, Chinese competition, or AGI salvation, is either largely myth-making or missing the most crucial point.

So let me challenge that frenzy with a different story.

1/
open.substack.com/pub/protagon...
The AI Race to Reboot Feudalism
Let's be honest about why they gamble everything
open.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 10:21 AM
abeba.bsky.social
the @ec.europa.eu's President von der Leyen is uncritically echoing AI hype & corporate PR, particularly that “AI would approach human reasoning in 2026”. we find this unacceptable & ask the Commission President to retract it. please sign this open letter if you agree
November 10, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
ali-alkhatib.com
you put self-driving cars on the road and you kill a person, you should be scared. if you put a chatbot into kids' hands and tell them to use it and they use it and then they kill themselves, you should be really fucking scared. the idea that the wagons should circle *around you* is unbelievable.
November 8, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
cathalmalone.bsky.social
The State, uniquely, is in a position to react differently. Instead of making better decisions, they just decide they'll make it too hard to sue them, and then they carry on breaking the law exactly the way they were beforehand.
November 9, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
cathalmalone.bsky.social
Obviously it's never an unpopular move to take money away from lawyers. I get that. But if you make it uneconomical to work as a solicitor or barrister suing the Government, then that same Government can essentially do whatever it wants without fear of being stopped in the courts.
November 9, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
cathalmalone.bsky.social
The Government's new stated aim is to make it so unattractive for lawyers to take good cases against the State that they will stop. Not bad cases. Good ones. Successful ones. This new rule only applies if you *win* your case. Doesn't that worry anyone slightly?

m.independent.ie/irish-news/o...
Objectors will be on the hook to pay six-figure legal costs under judicial reviews clampdown
Objectors will have to foot six-figure legal bills for successful judicial review cases in a new move being brought to the Cabinet to speed up the supply of infrastructure and housing.
m.independent.ie
November 9, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
alexhanna.bsky.social
Surprise #MozFest panel -- we're having a session on the main stage called "Unlearning Cisnormativity: Trans Justice is Tech Justice" at 12:15 PM CET, right after @xychelsea.tv's talk.

Featuring Veronyka Gimenes, @schock.cc, Dia Kayyali, Elijah MacKinnon, and myself.

www.mozillafestival.org/en/
November 9, 2025 at 10:14 AM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
samadams.bsky.social
Six people died from tampered Tylenol and the company pulled 30 million bottles off the market. ChatGPT is accused of urging seven people towards suicide, and OpenAI just assures us they’re still working out the kinks. Billions in investment, zero accountability.
OpenAI faces 7 lawsuits claiming ChatGPT drove people to suicide, delusions
OpenAI is facing seven lawsuits claiming ChatGPT drove people to suicide and harmful delusions even when they had no prior mental health issues.
apnews.com
November 8, 2025 at 2:46 PM
abeba.bsky.social
this
anarchygoose.bsky.social Anarchy Goose @anarchygoose.bsky.social · 1d
Altman has been quite clear about his strategy.

From the 2008 crash he learned that if you bind enough of the economy to your business you can do whatever you like; government will decide the rules no longer apply.

What he's selling is unaccountabilty.
aselrod.bsky.social Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 1d
I honestly don’t get the value of this company. They hoover up energy and water. Their product constantly gets things wrong and, in extreme cases, coaches people into suicide.

And it’s all built on what seems to be malicious and vast intellectual property theft.

What does OpenAI offer the world?
November 9, 2025 at 9:52 AM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Seems bad…
dietram.bsky.social Dietram A. Scheufele @dietram.bsky.social · 2d
Our 2017 @nationalacademies.org report on “Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance" (www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/hum...) was designed to prevent exactly this kind of rogue science. One of the many reasons why we need industry-independent regulatory frameworks for emerging tech …
Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned. Tech Titans Are Trying to Make One Anyway.
Silicon Valley startups are pushing the boundaries of reproductive genetics, hoping to prevent diseases as well as improve chances for a high IQ and other traits.
www.wsj.com
November 9, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
aselrod.bsky.social
I honestly don’t get the value of this company. They hoover up energy and water. Their product constantly gets things wrong and, in extreme cases, coaches people into suicide.

And it’s all built on what seems to be malicious and vast intellectual property theft.

What does OpenAI offer the world?
histoftech.bsky.social Gales of November ReMar-mbered @histoftech.bsky.social · 4d
“authors & publishers who filed a lawsuit against the Sam Altman-led firm have secured access to internal Slack messages… discussing the mass deletion of a pirated books dataset… A NY district court ordered OpenAI to hand over the communications regarding data deletion”
futurism.com/artificial-i...
OpenAI in Danger After Authors Suing It Gain Access to Its Internal Slack Messages
Authors and publishers, who are suing OpenAI, secured access to internal Slack messages and emails discussing the deletion of pirated books.
futurism.com
November 9, 2025 at 7:35 AM
abeba.bsky.social
what good is AI accessibility if it is access to turd
November 8, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
molly.wiki
thanks Google AI!
AI Overview: "Cote" is pronounced "coat" in English, but the French pronunciation is "coat".
November 7, 2025 at 11:50 PM
abeba.bsky.social
no, I don't wanna download another fucking app on my phone
November 7, 2025 at 6:00 PM
abeba.bsky.social
apparently this is controversial even "utterly fallacious" according to some replies. reality is, relying on big tech/AI to be ethical is like asking them to self-regulate. it can never work. regulation makes clear what they are liable for & is our best chance if it can be coupled by enforcement
abeba.bsky.social Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 3d
it's not lack of "ethics" that's led us to the authoritarian and facist state we are in currently. it's lack of respect for the rule of law and failure of responsible bodies to enforce the law
November 7, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
gmconsultancy.bsky.social
Have or will the powers that be in Wales asked students if they actually want to see AI integrated into the classroom? Tbh, have they even asked teachers?

#ai #genai #edtechuk #education
abeba.bsky.social Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 5d
me at the end of class: here's a little speculative exercises; imagine you wake up from cryosleep in 2085. what's the kind of tech-society r/ship you'd like to see around you?

students: no AI

I honestly think students' views are missing from the 'should AI be integrated in classrooms' discussion
November 7, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Dr Abeba Birhane
alexhanna.bsky.social
Thinking again how perverse it is that Musk was given a $1T salary as his cuts to USAID has led to 600,000 deaths. What a shameful world.
November 7, 2025 at 1:18 PM