The AI Con by Emily M. Bender & Alex Hanna

We are excited to host Emily M. Bender & Alex Hanna for an event celebrating their new release, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want! For this event, they will be joined in conversation by Ale, co-director at the Lucy Parsons Lab.

Please note: This event is free to attend, but registration is required! Masks are required for our in-person events.

A smart, incisive look at the technologies sold as artificial intelligence, the drawbacks and pitfalls of technology sold under this banner, and why it’s crucial to recognize the many ways in which AI hype covers for a small set of power-hungry actors at work and in the world.

Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything?

The answer to these questions, linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear, is “no,” “they wish,” “LOL,” and “definitely not.” This kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype looks and smells fishy: It twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In The AI Con, Bender and Hanna offer a sharp, witty, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms.

Bender and Hanna show you how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. Armed with these tools, you will be prepared to push back against AI hype at work, as a consumer in the marketplace, as a skeptical newsreader, and as a citizen holding policymakers to account. Together, Bender and Hanna expose AI hype for what it is: a mask for Big Tech’s drive for profit, with little concern for who it affects.

Dr. Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington where she is also the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program and affiliate faculty in the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School. In 2023, she was included in the inaugural Time 100 list of the most influential people in AI. She is frequently consulted by policymakers, from municipal officials to the federal government to the United Nations, for insight into how to understand so-called AI technologies.

Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) and a Lecturer in the School of Information at the University of California Berkeley. She is an outspoken critic of the tech industry, a proponent of community-based uses of technology, and a highly sought-after speaker and expert who has been featured across the media, including articles in the Washington Post, Financial Times, The Atlantic, and Time.

Ale (ah-leh) is a Co-Director at Lucy Parsons Labs (or LPL, for short), a forever Chicagoan with Mexican immigrant parents, and a lover of mischief. They scheme with others at LPL to challenge the spread of digital tools and dogmas accelerating techno-fascist realities. Ale holds a Bachelor’s from Stanford University and two Masters of Science from The University of Glasgow. They were a 2016 Marshall Scholar, a 2023 Public Voices Fellow, and in the inaugural cohort for the Municipalism Learning Series. When they’re not short-circuiting over technopolitics, they can be found arranging experimental club DJ mixes late into the night, or taking naps on various surfaces across the day. Ale is excited to share this space with friends from the computer, IRL, and everywhere else in between.

Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are required. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email ZXZlbnRzIHwgd29tZW5hbmRjaGlsZHJlbmZpcnN0ICEgY29t by no later than 14 days before the event. For other questions or access needs, please email ZXZlbnRzIHwgd29tZW5hbmRjaGlsZHJlbmZpcnN0ICEgY29t.

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