Shannon Vallor

@shannonvallor.bsky.social

15K followers 1.8K following 2.2K posts

Philosopher/AI Ethicist at Univ of Edinburgh, Director @technomoralfutures.bsky.social, co-Director @braiduk.bsky.social, author of Technology and the Virtues (2016) and The AI Mirror (2024). Views my own.

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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

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 8h

Internal time consciousness is so weird. I’ve sat through YouTube commercials that felt longer than that

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 8h

Fiona Apple’s quote sticks with me: “Every addict should just get locked in a private movie theatre with Q.T. & P.T.A. on coke, and they'll never want to do it again.” I get it! I don’t want a world without their movies (though could live without the last QT film). But I am happy to never know them…

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 8h

It’s a long-movie masterpiece weekend — tomorrow afternoon we see Mulholland Drive in the theater for the first time in 25 years, at the Cameo with @karengregory.bsky.social and I can’t wait

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 11h

Finally saw One Battle After Another before it left the big screen. Holy shitballs. I can’t remember the last time I saw a three hour film that didn’t have a wasted second. Also, DiCaprio has been in good movies, and been good *in* movies, but I’ve never really enjoyed him onscreen. Until now.

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 8h

I haven’t seen it — it’s one I’ve wanted to, but as a star vehicle for DiCaprio it just left me indifferent. I will see it now

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 11h

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, David Kaufman, Laurent Dubois , and 8 more Shannon Vallor, David Kaufman, Laurent Dubois, John Heathershaw, Michael D. McDonald, James Goodwin, Brian Keegan, Michael Müller, Lisa Diedrich, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Ana Marie Cox @anamariecox.bsky.social · 12h

From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 12h

Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 12h

Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:

“Faith leader, Michael Woolf, minister at Lake Street Church of Evanston, is detained by Illinois State Police during a protest against immigration actions, outside the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., November 14, 2025. REUTERS/Jim Vondruska”

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 20h

Do not go to A&M, do not speak at A&M unless you are looking to work at a state propaganda farm with an AI overseer

Brooke Newman @brookenewman.bsky.social · 21h

Message to all faculty: your expertise is no longer trusted or valued at this so-called “university.”

A thread by an A&M professor describing how the new rules will impact faculty. Syllabi must be fed into AI to be checked for content not aligned with approved syllabi; students will be encouraged to report faculty for inaccurate content; and young people are now being told they get to decide what a professor should teach.

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Peter Thorne , and 12 more Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Peter Thorne, Tim Bale, Mark D. White, Smith, Charles W. Smith, Alan Richardson, Robert Wolfe, McKenzie Wark, Sylvain Laurens, Todd Pugatch, Brian Weatherson, Pam Jarvis, Sofya Aptekar

Brooke Newman @brookenewman.bsky.social · 21h

Message to all faculty: your expertise is no longer trusted or valued at this so-called “university.”

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 1d

“Hey Shannon guess what! Our awesome AI wrote a little thing of its own that sounds a lot like your missing essay, just a lot intellectually softer and gummier and weirdly your name is nowhere in it but we gave it to a rando who got it published last week! How cool is that? Here’s a link, sis!”

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 1d

YOU DON’T BY ANY CHANCE HAVE MY MISSING ESSAY IN YOUR TRAINING DATA DO YOU

“Sorry Shannon what’s that? It’s really loud in this server farm, can’t understand a word you are saying. Gotta go byyyeee”

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 1d

Now often can’t find my own past talks & essays online, even if I search my name and the exact title.

“Looks like there are no good matches for your search!”

YES THERE ARE GIVE ME THEM

“Tough shit Shannon! But here is some unrelated hot spammy garbage we get paid to serve you! Eat it loser”

SwiftOnSecurity @swiftonsecurity.com · 1d

I like how full text search of every book and human thought ever was a SOLVED PROBLEM in 2001, and now dicks at search engines and my own phone – a piece of silicon faster to respond than God was ever imagined in scripture – prevent it from working, _as a retroactive infantilizing design choice_.

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 1d

a ‘human in the loop’ protocol is now a guardrail made of swiss cheese

Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 1d

Unfortunately the space of LLM code errors and the space of human errors are not the same, making hard-won code review instincts misfire

Reposted by Shannon Vallor

SwiftOnSecurity @swiftonsecurity.com · 1d

Reposted by Shannon Vallor

Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 1d

Unfortunately the space of LLM code errors and the space of human errors are not the same, making hard-won code review instincts misfire

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Brendan Nyhan, David Rothschild , and 8 more Shannon Vallor, Brendan Nyhan, David Rothschild, Christian E. Weller, Rebecca Tushnet, David R. Miller, Christopher Peters, Michael D. McDonald, Brian Murphy, Carol J. Adams, Sam Kamin

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 1d

A teenager in Florida with a homeless parent wanted money for braces and ended up having sex for money with powerful men, setting off a chain of events that would have a dramatic impact on her life and help upend the political career of Representative Matt Gaetz. nyti.ms/49PSkL9

Matt Gaetz, wearing a paisley tie and black suit jacket. A headline reads: "In Matt Gaetz Scandal, A 17-year-Old Was Left Vulnerable to Exploitation." Photo by Kenny Holston/New York Times

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Lisa W. Fazio , and 30 more Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Lisa W. Fazio, Richard S.J. Tol, A. E. Dessler, Brendan Nyhan, John Horgan, Efrén O. Pérez, Juan Cole, Shelly Lundberg, Nancy T. Ammerman, Robert C. Richards, Alan Richardson, Michael W. Kraus, David R. Miller, Robert Wolfe, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Beatriz Gallardo Paúls, James Goodwin, Jason Lyall, Mark Rice, Lisa Diedrich, Brian Doucet, Ann Bartow, Carol J. Adams, Nelson Flores, Greg O’Brien, James A. Benn, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Dan Immergluck, David Darmofal

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 1d

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Lisa W. Fazio, Steven Heydemann , and 4 more Shannon Vallor, Lisa W. Fazio, Steven Heydemann, Juliet B. Schor, Jacob Montgomery, Anne Norton, Daxton R. Stewart

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 1d

Let me fix that for you:

Texas A&M is limiting how instructors may discuss gender identity and race in classrooms in an assault on academic freedom unseen in America since the Red Scare.

WHAT PROFESSORS CAN SAY
Texas A&M is limiting how instructors may discuss gender identity and race in classrooms amid statewide debates over academic freedom.

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 1d

I stared at this headline too long and now my brain won’t go

CNN headline ‘Self-styled miracle worker whose followers claimed could multiply gnocchi charged with fraud’

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Juliet B. Schor, Fabián Muniesa , and 4 more Shannon Vallor, Juliet B. Schor, Fabián Muniesa, Beatriz Gallardo Paúls, W Grant, David Murakami Wood, Woodrow Hartzog

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 1d

New: Google has chosen a side in Trump's mass deportation campaign. Google is hosting a CBP facial recognition app to hunt immigrants; no indication Google will remove. At same time Google takes down apps for reporting ICE sightings

“Big tech has made their choice”

www.404media.co/google-has-c...

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort

Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable gr...

www.404media.co

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Rebecca Tushnet

aloof wife @jonchristian.net · 1d

toy company CEOs: "at long last, we have created the Sinister Talking Doll Factory from the acclaimed movie 'Don't Create the Sinister Talking Doll Factory'"

futurism.com/artificial-i...

AI-Powered Toys Caught Telling 5-Year-Olds How to Find Knives and Start Fires With Matches

AI-powered toys are flying off the shelves -- but they're engaging in horrifically inappropriate conversations with children.

futurism.com

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Rebecca Tushnet , and 1 more Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Rebecca Tushnet, Kate Jackson

May-lee Chai (she/her) @mayleechai.bsky.social · 2d

Meanwhile, “did women ruin the workplace?”

The New York Times
(Screenshot of headline:)
INTERESTING TIMES WITH ROSS DOUTHAT
Did Women Ruin the Workplace?

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, David Lazer

Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 2d

"Federal policy has jumped the gun: We don’t yet know if AI will transform the economy or even be profitable. Yet Washington is insulating the industry from all sorts of risk. If a bubble does pop, we’ll all be left holding the bag." [Gift Link] www.wsj.com/opinion/you-...

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Ben H. Ansell, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 5 more Shannon Vallor, Ben H. Ansell, Rosemary A. Joyce, Ian Hall, Daniel W. Drezner, Jonathan Hopkin, David R. Miller, Andrew Jacobs

Cethan Leahy @cethanleahy.com · 2d

Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Will Jennings , and 6 more Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Will Jennings, Adam Bonica, Anne Norton, Mark Rice, Nelson Flores, Greg Linden, Brooke Harrington

John Cluverius @johncluverius.bsky.social · 2d

The Epstein story gets a something that is tearing at the heart of the electorate: elite impunity. The idea that wealthy and powerful people can do terrible things *at scale* and face no consequences for them. Whatever political party actually stops it could rule the country for a generation.

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Steve Peers, Jon Green , and 3 more Shannon Vallor, Steve Peers, Jon Green, Smith, Jonathan Hopkin, Alan Richardson

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 2d

pretty funny in retrospect that QAnon hinged on the idea that powerful elites at the highest levels of government were smart enough to talk in code when sending emails to each other about their despicable crimes

Reposted by Shannon Vallor

Noam Law-msky @noamlaw.bsky.social · 2d

starting to think every email sent by someone worth over $5 million should be public record

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Lesley A. Hall , and 4 more Shannon Vallor, Anna O. Law, Lesley A. Hall, Kris Inwood, Margot C. Finn, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Anne Hilborn

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 2d

The value of reading history is you know that in 1860 there were abolitionists who were so demoralized that they thought chattel slavery would be permanent. 5 years later those still alive had lived to see its end.

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d

Many know Carol had a boyfriend cat, who visited her daily for all four years of her life. She often danced for him. Sometimes he got inside and ran under the bed with her. He tragically passed away two weeks ago and she is wrecked still (us too). We are getting her a dog. She’ll thank us later.

Carol the brown fluffy green eyed cat sad on a fuzzy grey blanket

Carol the brown fluffy green eyed cat even sadder on a fuzzy grey blanket

Carol the brown fluffy green eyed cat on a fuzzy grey blanket making me cry

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 2d

I am praying only the US is backwards enough to adopt a reading pedagogy that we’ve known for decades inhibits reading skill.

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