Timnit Gebru

@timnitgebru.bsky.social

31K followers 840 following 1.1K posts

Personal Account

Founder: The Distributed AI Research Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social.

Author: The View from Somewhere, a memoir & manifesto arguing for a technological future that serves our communities (to be published by One Signal / Atria .. more

Videos

Timnit Gebru is an Eritrean Ethiopian-born computer scientist who works in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), algorithmic bias and data mining. She is a co-founder of Black in AI, an advocacy group that has pushed for more Black roles in AI development and research. She is the founder of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR). .. more

Computer science 77%

Mathematics 7%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Pinned

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · Apr 15

🔇🔇🔇Announcing new work from DAIR which is very close to my heart, 3 years in the making.

When #TigrayGenocide, the deadliest genocide of the 21st century thus far, started in November 2020, it was 1 month before I got fired from Google. 🧵

english.elpais.com/internationa...

Ethiopia’s forgotten war is the deadliest of the 21st century, with around 600,000 civilian deaths

Estimates by European institutions and academics say over half a million non-combatants have died during the Tigray conflict as a result of a government blockade that kept out humanitarian aid

english.elpais.com

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 17h

You could have taken the feedback from Emily and Tom instead of continuing down the road you did but anyhow, others have done the work of doing that so no need from further back and forth from me.

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 17h

Always great to see people's true colors come out.

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 17h

I dunno. I got my PhD from a lab called "The Stanford AI Lab" and I'm described as "an AI skeptic." Not an engineer, not a computer scientist, not someone who has built things that work and describes the harms of tech as a technologist, but as an "AI skeptic." Interesting.

Reposted by Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 22h

Hey Benjamin, you're getting some suff wrong here, starting with framing me and my colleagues as "AI skeptics". It's true that we call BS on claims of AI, AGI, LLMs understanding etc. But "AI skeptic" is a term that resides within the AI booster's frame of view, not ours.

>>

Screencap from blog post linked in quoted skeet. Text: Now for some controversy: Describing LLMs as stochastic parrots is not inherently derogatory. I think many people get tripped up here because they know that the originators of the metaphor, all of them prominent AI skeptics, meant it that way. Fine, agreed. But the cool thing about being sentient humans is that we can independently think about whether the metaphor is apt as a description of what’s happening under the hood of an LLM (yet another metaphor). Again, yes! It’s great, as close to perfect as we might find in two words for describing how these weird new things operate. It’s math, not magic.

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

and by us I mean any type of human.

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

The audacity of saying that someone who has done extensive scholarship on how to NOT engage in the dehumanization of disabled people is doing that while it is those who compare LLMs to us who engage in that, is ridiculous, and doesn't merit any engagement. Not all "sides" are valid sides.

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

But I certainly will not engage with anyone comparing LLMs to people, especially disabled people. Period. Which is why I'm existing this discourse right here.

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

No. She event wrote a long piece about how discourse about LLMs "thinking" and comparing them to disabled people, like a number of people have done, is extremely dehumanizing to disabled people. You can feel free to pursue her many writings or one of them "resisting dehumanization in the age of AI."

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

“Without these chemicals, we don’t earn enough,” she said. “But they are also killing us.”

“Tigrayan commanders, federal officers, foreigners […] they make the chaos and then they profit from the chaos,” he said.

“They all benefit. Except the people of Tigray"

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

"A confidential legal report, obtained by TBIJ, detailed the widespread use of chemicals near sources of drinking water. One miner who lives near a mine showed us welts covering her hands. In a village downstream, another said two children have died from illnesses she attributes to cyanide."

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

"Yet for miners like her, gold is far from lucrative. After the investors and the military men took their cut, she was left with just enough to keep her and her family fed."

"The ecological crisis gripping the region has been extensively documented."

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

"the Chinese government has been in a race with the West to control global reserves of precious metals."

"The gold trade was new to her, [...] Her family had been left destitute by the war, so she, like so many, was forced to find an alternative income." 💔

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

"[...] the expansion of these operations has been financed by EAM’s Chinese business partners. They said Chinese miners employed by EAM’s partners and subsidiaries have been mining on these sites, alongside some Tigrayan military officers,"

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

"Journalists reporting on these matters have been detained and threatened with violence. Whistle-blowers have been intimidated, assaulted and threatened with death. Tigrayans protesting the looting of their land have been injured and killed."

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

"People living nearby have reported strange skin conditions. Their crops and animals are dying.The political fight to control Tigray’s resources means the stakes are high."

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

"EAM said it “categorically denies the suggestion it is implicated in activities that violate Canadian, Ethiopian or international law.” [Yea right!]

"The chemicals being used to pry gold from the earth are poisoning the local land and water."

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

"Part of what is driving the explosion of illegal mining in Tigray is the sky-high price of gold around the world. The United States, China and others are scrambling to buy up gold reserves."

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

I don't know how I missed this incredible investigative reporting by @clairelwilmot.bsky.social and Ashenafi Endale, illicit mining in Tigray-->funding for another looming war, pollution, and, surprise surprise, foreign investment from Canada + China🧵

www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

When Tigray became a ‘Wild West’ of illegal gold mining, Canadian firms staked a claim

A postwar gold rush in Ethiopia razed the landscape and sowed seeds for conflict. The Globe looks into Canadian-licensed sites at the heart of it, and their ties to Beijing

www.theglobeandmail.com

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

They're talking about refusal to engage with dehumanization as it's a bad thing "policing ontological beliefs of other people". Yes if you believe I'm subhuman then I won't talk to you.

Reposted by Timnit Gebru

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 2d

Here's an example of the reaction I'm describing here, and I appreciate something this particular poster makes clear: They neither understand nor respect boundaries. There's no policing happening here, just my own decisions about who I will have a conversation with.

Screencap of a tweet, with handle/name of poster truncated. Text: Eg, when Emily Bender says she won’t speak with anyone who doesn’t consider her a fully sentient human being, she is policing ontological *beliefs* of other people. When she denies LLMs can think (no ext reference) she is excluding them from meaningfulness *due to* their ontology

Reposted by Timnit Gebru

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 3d

"[DHS] is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency."

Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts

www.nytimes.com

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 3d

Add Tigrayans and Eritreans. He was in the team who gaslit the 1M+ victims of #TigrayGenocide and other victims of the Eritrean dictatorship.

Reposted by Timnit Gebru, Helen Clark

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 3d

Awww thank you ❤️

Reposted by Timnit Gebru

Lora Kolodny @lorak.bsky.social · 3d

Even if you are not surprised, this is important reporting documenting the bigoted ideology (and often, falsehoods) that Musk is promoting to his zillion online followers. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Elon Musk posted about race almost every day in January

Many social media posts by Tesla CEO on his platform are indiscernible from those of white supremacists, say experts

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Timnit Gebru

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 3d

Full comic here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/script... #smbc

Reposted by Timnit Gebru

Michael Busch @michael-w-busch.bsky.social · 3d

For anyone who is unaware why the phrase "effective altruism" should be considered with deep suspicion, along with related phrases like "existential risk", I recommend the work of @timnitgebru.bsky.social :

firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...

View of The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence

firstmonday.org

Reposted by Timnit Gebru

Sophie Fullerton @sophiefullerton.bsky.social · 3d

They may argue otherwise, but these influencers are 100% with a minder. If Bushra and Calla were simply exploring Iran alone, they wouldn’t just happen to be spewing the exact same regime talking points in the exact same locations. (1)

Add to Home Screen

Light up
your news

Add to Home Screen

Light upyour news

Sign in to Lightnews

Sign up to start reading

Connect Bluesky

Connect with Bluesky

Light up
your news