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Endangered Judgment: Joseph Weizenbaum, Artificial Intelligence, and the Imperialism of Instrumental Reason | Critical AI | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu
Many thanks to the brilliant editors at @criticalai-journal.bsky.social my article is out: Endangered Judgment: Joseph Weizenbaum, Artificial Intelligence, and the Imperialism of Instrumental Reason url: read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...
My review of @shannonvallor.bsky.social 's The AI Mirror is now up at IEEE. A profound read: "In the age of AI. . .the courage to act autonomously seems to be on the wane. Vallor, as Weizenbaum did too, seeks new metaphors for fortifying it." ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/111...
<i>The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking</i>–Shannon Vallor (New York, NY, USA: Oxford Univ. Press, 2024)
Presents reviews for the following list of books, The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking–Shannon Vallor (New York, NY, USA: Oxford Univ. Press, 2024).
ieeexplore.ieee.org
September 13, 2025 at 6:10 AM
My review of @shannonvallor.bsky.social 's The AI Mirror is now up at IEEE. A profound read: "In the age of AI. . .the courage to act autonomously seems to be on the wane. Vallor, as Weizenbaum did too, seeks new metaphors for fortifying it." ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/111...
Interesting CFP. Are we mythologizing ELIZA and/or Weizenbaum?
The #CfP for the Special Issue “Celebrating 60 Years of #ELIZA? Critical Pasts and Futures of AI” in the Weizenbaum Journal was just published! Please have a look, consider to submit your work, and forward the Call to interested colleagues. Thanks! ojs.weizenbaum-institut.de/index.php/wj...
August 25, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Interesting CFP. Are we mythologizing ELIZA and/or Weizenbaum?
Reposted by Luke Fernandez
TEACHERS: If you're looking for a reading to assign, to help explain why you're banning AI from your classroom, here ya go.
There didn't seem to be one article that rounds up all the major issues. I tried to do that here, so it's a long read. Feel free to use/share as you like.
There didn't seem to be one article that rounds up all the major issues. I tried to do that here, so it's a long read. Feel free to use/share as you like.
Why We’re Not Using AI in This Course, Despite Its Obvious Benefits
A reading for your students
emergingethics.substack.com
August 7, 2025 at 8:16 PM
TEACHERS: If you're looking for a reading to assign, to help explain why you're banning AI from your classroom, here ya go.
There didn't seem to be one article that rounds up all the major issues. I tried to do that here, so it's a long read. Feel free to use/share as you like.
There didn't seem to be one article that rounds up all the major issues. I tried to do that here, so it's a long read. Feel free to use/share as you like.
@milesbrundage.bsky.social on X: "Never ask a man his salary. .or an AI company its definition of AGI" Which is why at OpenAI Sutskever rallied ppl by exhorting them 2 "feel the AGI". Like Nye's tech sublime AGI is felt rather than defined. It acts as a social glue precisely cuz its ineffable.
August 5, 2025 at 9:32 AM
@milesbrundage.bsky.social on X: "Never ask a man his salary. .or an AI company its definition of AGI" Which is why at OpenAI Sutskever rallied ppl by exhorting them 2 "feel the AGI". Like Nye's tech sublime AGI is felt rather than defined. It acts as a social glue precisely cuz its ineffable.
As Ilya Sutskever likes to say "feel the AGI"!
August 5, 2025 at 7:38 AM
As Ilya Sutskever likes to say "feel the AGI"!
Reposted by Luke Fernandez
Reposted by Luke Fernandez
I've seen it described as AGI
A Guy Instead
A Guy Instead
August 4, 2025 at 2:50 PM
I've seen it described as AGI
A Guy Instead
A Guy Instead
Reposted by Luke Fernandez
As an automation engineer, we call this ‘human in the loop’ automation. 10/10, no notes.
August 4, 2025 at 12:04 PM
As an automation engineer, we call this ‘human in the loop’ automation. 10/10, no notes.
In @karenhao.bsky.social Empire of AI many of the chapter titles r aptly named (eg 'Science in Captivity' or Sutskever's [un] 'Scaled Ambition'). But others r more cryptic. Is it Sam's 'Divine Right'? And is the 'Dream of Modernity' a tech, pace Power & Progress, that distributes power equitably?
July 29, 2025 at 12:16 PM
In @karenhao.bsky.social Empire of AI many of the chapter titles r aptly named (eg 'Science in Captivity' or Sutskever's [un] 'Scaled Ambition'). But others r more cryptic. Is it Sam's 'Divine Right'? And is the 'Dream of Modernity' a tech, pace Power & Progress, that distributes power equitably?
Tschopp, M., Gieselmann, M., & Sassenberg, K. (2023). Servant by default? How humans perceive their relationship with conversational AI. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 17(3), Article 9. doi.org/10.5817/CP20...
Cyberpsychology
doi.org
July 29, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Tschopp, M., Gieselmann, M., & Sassenberg, K. (2023). Servant by default? How humans perceive their relationship with conversational AI. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 17(3), Article 9. doi.org/10.5817/CP20...
A question of course is whether Weizenbaum, and moden AI critics, have succeeded in "explaining away" AI -- arguably not since "we" continue to be enchanted (deceived?) by AI. @karenhao.bsky.social @cfiesler.bsky.social
Just picked up Empire of AI by @karenhao.bsky.social and it opens with the same Joseph Weizenbaum quote about ELIZA that I’ve been using in my slide decks for years! 👏
July 27, 2025 at 8:25 AM
A question of course is whether Weizenbaum, and moden AI critics, have succeeded in "explaining away" AI -- arguably not since "we" continue to be enchanted (deceived?) by AI. @karenhao.bsky.social @cfiesler.bsky.social
A great word. Tho the primary way in which LLMs engage in "epistemicide" is that - by design - they fail to abide by the citational practices that academics use to anchor and legitimate truth claims.
July 27, 2025 at 7:54 AM
A great word. Tho the primary way in which LLMs engage in "epistemicide" is that - by design - they fail to abide by the citational practices that academics use to anchor and legitimate truth claims.
"...I’m not interested in reading something that nobody wrote,” Tru in so many contexts. . .tho do we care in the case of technical writing?
"...I’m not interested in reading something that nobody wrote,” she says. “I read because I want to understand how somebody sees something, and there’s no ‘somebody’ inside the synthetic text-extruding machines.”
Profesor Emily M Bender of the University of Washington.
Co-author: The AI Con
Profesor Emily M Bender of the University of Washington.
Co-author: The AI Con
‘Nobody wants a robot to read them a story!’ The creatives and academics rejecting AI – at work and at home
Is artificial intelligence coming for everyone’s jobs? Not if this lot have anything to do with it
www.theguardian.com
July 27, 2025 at 7:43 AM
"...I’m not interested in reading something that nobody wrote,” Tru in so many contexts. . .tho do we care in the case of technical writing?
Reposted by Luke Fernandez
The old equivalent of having too many browser tabs open
July 25, 2025 at 10:56 PM
The old equivalent of having too many browser tabs open
Reposted by Luke Fernandez
Call for papers!
International conference
“Technological Optimism in 1970s and 1980s Popular Culture: Innovation, Creativity, Prosperity, and Freedom”
-> https://ieg-dhr.github.io/techno_optimism
International conference
“Technological Optimism in 1970s and 1980s Popular Culture: Innovation, Creativity, Prosperity, and Freedom”
-> https://ieg-dhr.github.io/techno_optimism
July 7, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Call for papers!
International conference
“Technological Optimism in 1970s and 1980s Popular Culture: Innovation, Creativity, Prosperity, and Freedom”
-> https://ieg-dhr.github.io/techno_optimism
International conference
“Technological Optimism in 1970s and 1980s Popular Culture: Innovation, Creativity, Prosperity, and Freedom”
-> https://ieg-dhr.github.io/techno_optimism
Odd that no one is using Cyrano de Bergerac (the play) to frame the Cluely story. Here's a clip from Roxanne: youtu.be/_PZ_LyJfYe8?...
July 11, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Odd that no one is using Cyrano de Bergerac (the play) to frame the Cluely story. Here's a clip from Roxanne: youtu.be/_PZ_LyJfYe8?...
Hmm. Is this a satisfactory portrait of AI discourse? IMO it elides a large swath of the public who see that AI generates harms and benefits. Better to think of AI critics as movie critics -- they are critical of particular media artifacts, but most don't reject the media wholesale.
The AI industry’s supporters and skeptics sound more and more like believers and atheists—locked in an intense, frequently petulant war that may never end. Where does that leave everyone else? @matteowong.bsky.social reports:
The AI Civil War Is Here
The tech industry and its critics occupy parallel universes.
bit.ly
July 10, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Hmm. Is this a satisfactory portrait of AI discourse? IMO it elides a large swath of the public who see that AI generates harms and benefits. Better to think of AI critics as movie critics -- they are critical of particular media artifacts, but most don't reject the media wholesale.
Walter Benjamin must have read his Nietzsche: "For thinkers and all sensitive spirits, boredom is that disagreeable 'windless calm' of the soul that precedes a happy voyage and cheerful winds. They have to bear it and must wait for its effect on them."
July 10, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Walter Benjamin must have read his Nietzsche: "For thinkers and all sensitive spirits, boredom is that disagreeable 'windless calm' of the soul that precedes a happy voyage and cheerful winds. They have to bear it and must wait for its effect on them."
To understand the relationship between loneliness and AI it's helpful to understand the history of loneliness and its relationship to what the sociologist Robert Weiss called "the loneliness industry." @samantharhill.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/o...
Opinion | Tech Companies Have Created a Loneliness Doom Loop
www.nytimes.com
July 10, 2025 at 7:46 AM
To understand the relationship between loneliness and AI it's helpful to understand the history of loneliness and its relationship to what the sociologist Robert Weiss called "the loneliness industry." @samantharhill.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/o...
Worth noting Weizenbaum described ELIZA and programmers in similar terms: "ELIZA was an actress who commanded a set of techniques but had nothing of her own to say" (page 188) VS: "[CS] students. . .are people who. .become eloquent. .but . . .have literally nothing of their own to say." (page 278)
July 9, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Worth noting Weizenbaum described ELIZA and programmers in similar terms: "ELIZA was an actress who commanded a set of techniques but had nothing of her own to say" (page 188) VS: "[CS] students. . .are people who. .become eloquent. .but . . .have literally nothing of their own to say." (page 278)
The history of AI, to quote Thomas Haigh, is "The History of a Brand" caiml.org/machines2023...
July 8, 2025 at 9:36 AM
The history of AI, to quote Thomas Haigh, is "The History of a Brand" caiml.org/machines2023...
"The Turing test. . is a reminder that. . Humans, as participants in a communicative interaction [with AI], should be regarded as a crucial variable rather than obliterated by approaches that focus on the performance of computing technologies alone." Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
July 7, 2025 at 11:38 AM
"The Turing test. . is a reminder that. . Humans, as participants in a communicative interaction [with AI], should be regarded as a crucial variable rather than obliterated by approaches that focus on the performance of computing technologies alone." Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
"the Turing test is usually discussed as a problem about the definition of intelligence. An alternative way to look at it, however, is to consider it as an experiment in the communications between humans and computers."
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
July 7, 2025 at 11:29 AM
"the Turing test is usually discussed as a problem about the definition of intelligence. An alternative way to look at it, however, is to consider it as an experiment in the communications between humans and computers."
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
"By defining AI in terms of a computer’s ability to pass the Turing test, Turing included humans in the equation, making their ideas and biases, as well as their psychology and character, a crucial variable in the construction of “intelligent” machines."
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
July 7, 2025 at 11:28 AM
"By defining AI in terms of a computer’s ability to pass the Turing test, Turing included humans in the equation, making their ideas and biases, as well as their psychology and character, a crucial variable in the construction of “intelligent” machines."
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
"one may still expect today to be contradicted when speaking of machines “thinking”—yet [Turing] was right in realizing that cultural attitudes would shift, as a consequence of both the evolution of computing and people’s experiences with these technologies."
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
July 7, 2025 at 11:26 AM
"one may still expect today to be contradicted when speaking of machines “thinking”—yet [Turing] was right in realizing that cultural attitudes would shift, as a consequence of both the evolution of computing and people’s experiences with these technologies."
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media
Natale, Simone. Deceitful Media