Julie Carpenter, PhD
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jgcarpenter.com
Julie Carpenter, PhD
@jgcarpenter.com
3.2K followers 1.2K following 880 posts
Researcher of people and technology. AI & attachment. Learning scientist. UXR. Golems. Robots. Cat pics. New book, “The Naked Android: Synthetic Socialness and the Human Gaze.” jgcarpenter.com
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jgcarpenter.com
I will be a panelist on the upcoming "Code, Command, and Consequences: Ethics in the Age of Autonomous Weapons." I researched & wrote the book "Culture and Human-Robot Interaction in Militarized Spaces: A War Story." Register: events.scu.edu/ethics/event/ethics-age-autonomous-weapons
Image shows head shots of Brian Green, Lt Col David Von Bargen, Tim Henderson. and myself. 11-am-Noon, tuesday, November 18. Benson Center, Williman Room. Register: events.scu.edu/ethics/event/ethics-age-autonomous-weapons
November 13, 2025 at 12:28 AM
jgcarpenter.com
Ludo, caught mid-existential crisis and between naps. He believes that meaning is a human construct. #Caturday, however, is real.
A white cat with gray dots and face markings lies on his playmat on the floor. Ludo is looking at the camera with his big yellow-green eyes as if caught mid-existential crisis, between naps.
October 25, 2025 at 8:16 PM
jgcarpenter.com
From new blog essay up, "The Default Body" (no paywall) jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl... #AI #bias #data #gender #medicine
"Every generation of technology promises to correct the last one’s blind spots in the name of innovation. But when the training data still bears the imprint of disbelief, and when women’s pain, reproductive health, or hormonal complexity remain under-documented, the algorithm learns to doubt them faster. A model that overlooks female presentation in heart disease or autoimmune conditions doesn’t just make a computational error; it reenacts centuries of dismissal under a statistical flag." From "The Default Body" essay: https://jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?blogPost=the-default-body-ai-health-data-illusion-of-objectivity
October 19, 2025 at 5:14 PM
jgcarpenter.com
New blog post (never a paywall): "The Default Body: AI, biased health data, and the illusion of objectivity." Medicine's idea of a “universal body” was never universal. It was male, and now AI is learning from that legacy. Bias doesn’t disappear in data; it scales. jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
Image of Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man sketch and the blog article title, "The Default Body: AI, biased health data, and the illusion of objectivity." Image credit for the photo: dilara irem
October 19, 2025 at 5:03 PM
jgcarpenter.com
I called military and industry pivot/focus to humanoid robots in my first book and earlier papers. More recently, I’ve written about the user surveillance and privacy nightmare of networked home robots. jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
“Meet your wannabe robot overlords: The privacy nightmare of networked home robots.” An image of Optimus black and white humanoid robot.
September 27, 2025 at 4:19 AM
jgcarpenter.com
ABBA’s ABBAtars, Whitney’s hologram, K-pop’s avatars...each shows how presence itself is engineered. Memory, consent, race, gender and commerce enmeshed in cultural hopes and expectations. New blog post up (never a paywall): "Presence, Engineered."
jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
A photo of a woman facing the stage at a concert, hands clasped. There is a pink glow over the audience from stage lights. The text reads, "Presence, Engineered". Presence is a design choice: grief becomes a commodity, nostalgia becomes currency, and even the living are remade as ideals.
September 21, 2025 at 6:57 PM
jgcarpenter.com
"Once surveillance is introduced into daily life, it rarely retreats. Every face becomes evidence—recorded, stored, recalled—not because of what someone has done, but because they are visible." Just wrote about facial recognition tech. biases, power, and resistance. jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
A Black person, head and shoulders in a gray sweater, slightly facing camera-left. Their face is being scanned by a red light. The background is light gray. It reads, "Every Face Evidence. What begins as security becomes suspicion, and with facial recognition, suspicion becomes routine power."
August 27, 2025 at 7:00 PM
jgcarpenter.com
"Once surveillance is introduced into daily life, it rarely retreats. Every face becomes evidence—recorded, stored, recalled—not because of what someone has done, but because they are visible." New post on facial recognition tech. biases, power, and resistance.

jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
A Black person, head and shoulders in a gray sweater, slightly facing camera-left. Their face is being scanned by a red light. The background is light gray. It reads, "Every Face Evidence. What begins as security becomes suspicion, and with facial recognition, suspicion becomes routine power." https://jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?blogPost=every-face-evidence
August 24, 2025 at 7:33 PM
jgcarpenter.com
New blog post (never a paywall): "Every Face Evidence." A piece on AI, facial recognition, biases, and power. Our presence turned into data, and visibility into surveillance. Sold as consumer convenience, our images also build checkpoints & fill databases. jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
A Black person, head and shoulders in a gray sweater, slightly facing camera-left. Their face is being scanned by a red light. The background is light gray.
August 23, 2025 at 10:12 PM
jgcarpenter.com
lol I researched divers at sewage plants! Interesting use cases for robots to keep divers safe, and similar tech could be used by sat divers and in space exploration. That’s a USEFUL area of human-AI and robot research. Not immersive PowerPoints.

Hire me.
Me wearing a hardhat and safety vest while at a San Francisco wastewater treatment plant.
August 18, 2025 at 8:21 PM
jgcarpenter.com
I worked at a mall Record Town and same. And if you wanted an OOP or hard to find record, we ordered it for you from this beast: Phonolog. Good luck with your order arriving in 10-12 weeks!
A picture of an open older Phonolog recording listing catalog. Looked like a yellow pages on steroids.
August 16, 2025 at 11:57 PM
jgcarpenter.com
Today CNN will “interview” an AI version of Joaquin Oliver, a teen killed in the Parkland shooting. When grief is scripted, who decides what the dead say next & why? These AI avatars move judges, shape memory, revise legacy. I wrote about grief AI & consent: drift.jgcarpenter.com/p/your-setti...
"Your Settings Are Saved: Consent, simulation, and the reight to remain dead in the age of grief AI." A woman lying on a bed with her hands over her face. A camera and Polaroid photos are scattered around her head on the white bedcover.
August 4, 2025 at 9:40 PM
jgcarpenter.com
Reposting this essay (no paywall) on grief AI. From courtroom testimony to children’s bedtime conversations, people are using simulations of the dead in ways that feel intimate, comforting, or useful. But comfort isn’t the same as consent, & simulation isn’t memory. jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
"Your settings are saved: Consent, simulation, and to right to remian dead in the age of grief AI." A woman is lying down, her hands covering her face. A camera and polaroids are scattered around her head.
August 3, 2025 at 7:11 PM
jgcarpenter.com
New blog post just dropped (no paywall): "A Dangerous Imitation of Care." Examines the growing use of generative AI as a substitute for therapy. These systems simulate care without offering real support, accountability, privacy, or ethical oversight. jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
"A dangerous imitation of care: The real costs of using generative AI as a therapist." Stylized photo of a woman looking at her reflection in a shard of broken mirror held in her hand.
August 2, 2025 at 9:25 PM
jgcarpenter.com
"Who gets to design empathy? If you're inside the machine, make sure you know who built it." Immersive media turns other people’s trauma into DEI training and "empathy-building" experiences. New piece on VR, presence, and the politics of immersive design: jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
A photo of a woman in a white t-shirt wearing a VR headset with her hands in front of her, as if she is touching something. It reads, "Who gets to design empathy? If you're inside the machine, make sure you know who built it."
July 8, 2025 at 7:33 PM
jgcarpenter.com
My latest post, "Your Settings Are Saved: Consent, simulation, and the right to remain dead in the age of grief tech" is now up! No paywall.

jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
A woman with curly brown hair and a blue shirt is lying down, her hands covering her face as if very upset. On the bed around her are polaroids and pictures. The blog post title says, "Your Settings Are Saved: Consent, simulation, and the right to remain dead in the age of grief tech."
June 19, 2025 at 9:54 PM
jgcarpenter.com
New! "The task of repair includes protecting the most vulnerable among us, not just in rhetoric but in action. If our movements don’t make space for trans survival, they aren’t liberation movements, they’re just new vessels, destined to break in the same old ways." jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
Blog post title: "The Body Bears What the System Cannot Hold: What gets fixed—and what gets forgotten—is a political choice." Image of a blue background, a cream-colored vessel or vase broken, its shards scattered with six small marbles fallen near it.
June 2, 2025 at 9:58 PM
jgcarpenter.com
Reminds me of Carol’s desk and Bob’s office in Newhart, except diff color scheme.
A shot of receptionist Carol sitting at a mod early 70s circular desk in the Newhart offices.
May 21, 2025 at 4:50 PM
jgcarpenter.com
My new (free) blog post is up: "Why AGI Won’t Save the World: And Who Wants You To Think It Will?" It was hard to write; there’s something new in the AGI hype cycle every day & almost none of it is critical. This piece tries to cut through some of that noise. jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
A screenshot of the blog post, "Why AGI Won’t Save the World: And Who Wants You To Think It Will?" A photo of the back of Sophia, a humanlike robot's head, that show's the inner workings and wires. Photo credit: Subhasish Baidya https://jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?blogPost=why-agi-wont-save-the-world-julie-carpenter
April 22, 2025 at 7:34 PM
jgcarpenter.com
Also relevant, I wrote "If not friend, why friend-shaped? AI Companions Are Designed To Make You Use Them," explaining in plain language how AI chatbots are intentionally designed to foster a humanlike model of emotional attachment. /🧵 jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
The blog post title is printed over the image of a woman resting her head against the back of a chair, a night cityscape blurred in the background while she is focused on the soft glow of her phone. https://jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?blogPost=if-not-friend-why-friend-shaped-julie-carpenter
April 4, 2025 at 2:27 AM
jgcarpenter.com
"Meet Your Wannabe Robot Overlords
The Privacy Nightmare of Networked Home Robots"
There are significant privacy concerns; I also outline concrete actions people can take to protect their personal data when using AI technologies, including consumer boycotts.

jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
"Meet Your Wannabe Robot Overlords: The Privacy Nightmare of Networked Home Robots" is the post title in the image, with the publication date of March 18, 2025. There is a photo of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot. https://jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?blogPost=meet-your-wannabe-robot-overlord-julie-carpenter
April 4, 2025 at 2:14 AM
jgcarpenter.com
A short thread on why this take is absolute bollocks.

First, it erases how education structures thinking, not just spits out facts. Saying “a smartphone and curiosity” can replace expertise isn’t visionary, it’s a dismissal of critical thinking, ethical grounding, & domain depth. 🧵
Mark Cuban posts: If you have zero education, but learn how to ask AI models the right questions , in many jobs you will be able to outperform someone with an advanced degree, but who is unwilling to use Large Language Models. Just takes a smartphone, curiosity to experiment and a mindset to learn.
March 24, 2025 at 5:16 PM
jgcarpenter.com
Meta used my latest book, along with several of my published articles, to train the AI it plans to profit from on a massive scale.

Authors, search for your name in LibGen "the pirated-books database that Meta used to train AI" here:

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Screen shot of the LibGen search tool with results showing for Julie Carpenter (18 total), starting with my latest book that just came out, "The Naked Android: Synthetic Socialness and the Human Gaze."
March 20, 2025 at 6:57 PM
jgcarpenter.com
Have privacy concerns about Echo? Now imagine Alexa with legs, eyes, and the ability to shape its owner's worldview. When AI is embedded in the home, it's more than a tool; it's also a medium for influence and surveillance.
jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...
A screenshot of the blog post that shows an image of the faceless humanoid Tesla Optimus robot and the text: Meet Your Wannabe Robot Overlords, The Privacy Nightmare of Home Robots. Link https://jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?blogPost=meet-your-wannabe-robot-overlord-julie-carpenter
March 19, 2025 at 10:39 PM
jgcarpenter.com
Check out my latest FREE plain language article on Drift, where, from Elon Musk's Optimus to Amazon's Astro, I dive into the hidden ethical risks of home robots & their role as tools for political and corporate influence. jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl...

#AI #Robots #Privacy #Surveillance #Ethics
https://jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?blogPost=meet-your-wannabe-robot-overlord-julie-carpenter A screenshot of the blog post that shows an image of the humanoid faceless Tesla Optimus robot and the text: Meet Your Wannabe Robot Overlords, The Privacy Nightmare of Home Robots.
March 18, 2025 at 10:06 PM