Rebuilding the world but in whose image? The cost of AI’s utopian dream
AI ethics, & the continuing struggle over AI power
“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” — Christian Lous Lange
While I was deep into drafting a post on AI and the division of labour, my best friend interrupted me with an urgent phone call. She was eager to share that Timnit Gebru had published another article, “The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence.” For those familiar with the field of AI, especially the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) and the controversies surrounding them, you’ll remember Gebru. Her highly-cited co-written research paper, “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” co-authored with Emily Bender and others led to her controversial departure from Google in 2021.
This incident has captured my attention for some time, making me keen to see what Gebru would do next. Her latest work, co-authored with…
