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PODCAST

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000

Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna

Artificial Intelligence has too much hype. In this podcast, linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna break down the AI hype, separate fact from fiction, and science from bloviation. They"re joined by special guests and talk about everything, from machine consciousness to science fiction, to political economy to art made by machines.

technology tech news

All Episodes

65:02

AGI: "Imminent", "Inevitable", and Inane, 2025.04.21

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2025/05/14

Emily and Alex pore through an elaborate science fiction scenario about the "inevitability" of Artificial General Intelligence or AGI by the year 2027 - which rests atop a foundation of TESCREAL nonsense, and Sinophobia to boot. References: AI 2027 Fresh AI Hell: AI persona bots for undercover cops Palantir heart eyes Keir Starmer Anti-vaxxers are grifting off the measles outbreak with AI-formulated supplements The cost, environmental and otherwise, of being polite to ChatGPT Actors who sold ...

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60:25

AI Hell in a Handbasket, 2025.04.14

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2025/04/30

It's been 4 months since we've cleared the backlog of Fresh AI Hell and the bullshit is coming in almost too fast to keep up with. But between a page full of awkward unicorns and a seeming slowdown in data center demand, Alex and Emily have more good news than usual to accompany this round of catharsis. AI Hell: LLM processing like human language processing (not) Jack Clark predicting AGI Sebastian Bubeck says predictions in "sparks" paper have already come true WIRED puff piece on the Amodei...

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63:02

"AI" Agents, A Single Point of Failure (with Margaret...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2025/04/17

After "AI" stopped meaning anything, the hype salesmen moved on to "AI" "agents", those allegedly indefatigable assistants, allegedly capable of operating your software for you -- whether you need to make a restaurant reservation, book a flight, or book a flight to a restaurant reservation. Hugging Face's Margaret Mitchell joins Emily and Alex to help break down what agents actually are, and what to actually worry about. References: PwC launches AI agent operating system to revolutionize AI w...

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60:28

Linguists Versus 'AI' Speech Analysis (with Nicole...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2025/04/02

Measuring your talk time? Counting your filler words? What about "analyzing" your "emotions"? Companies that push LLM technology to surveil and summarize video meetings are increasingly offering to (purportedly) analyze your participation and assign your speech some metrics, all in the name of "productivity". Sociolinguist Nicole Holliday joins Alex and Emily to take apart claims about these "AI" meeting feedback tools, and reveal them to be just sparkling bossware, with little insight into h...

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60:00

The Anti-Bookclub Tackles 'Superagency', 2025.03.03

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2025/03/19

Emily and Alex read a terrible book so you don't have to! Come for a quick overview of LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman's opus of magical thinking, 'Superagency: What could possibly go right with our AI future' -- stay for the ridicule as praxis. Plus, why even this tortuous read offers a bit of comfort about the desperate state of the AI boosters. References: The cursèd book itself AI and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Benchmark Militants and Citizens: The Poli...

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60:23

The War on Knowledge (with Raina Bloom), 2025.02.24

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2025/03/05

In the weeks since January 20, the US information ecosystem has been unraveling fast. (We're looking at you Denali, Gulf of Mexico, and every holiday celebrating people of color and queer people that used to be on Google Calendar.) As the country's unelected South African tech billionaire continues to run previously secure government data through highly questionable LLMs, academic librarian Raina Bloom joins Emily and Alex for a talk about how we organize knowledge, and what happens when gene...

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46:34

Petro-Masculinity Versus the Planet (with Tamara...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2025/02/19

Sam Altman thinks fusion - particularly a company he's personally invested in - can provide the energy we "need" to develop AGI. Meanwhile, what if we just...put data centers on the Moon to save energy? Alex, Emily, and guest Tamara Kneese pour cold water on Silicon Valley's various unhinged, technosolutionist ideas about energy and the environment. Dr. Tamara Kneese is director of climate, technology and justice at the Data & Society Research Institute Due to some technical issues during...

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62:12

The UK's Misplaced Enthusiasm (with Gina Neff),...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2025/02/05

In January, the United Kingdom's new Labour Party prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced a new initiative to go all in on AI in the hopes of big economic returns, with a promise to “mainline” it into the country’s veins: everything from offering public data to private companies, to potentially fast-tracking miniature nuclear power plants to supply energy to data centers. UK-based researcher Gina Neff helps explain why this flashy policy proposal is mostly a blank check for big tech, and has ...

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62:19

Sam Altman's Fever Dream, 2025.01.13

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2025/01/22

Not only is OpenAI's new o3 model allegedly breaking records for how close an LLM can get to the mythical "human-like thinking" of AGI, but Sam Altman has some, uh, reflections for us as he marks two years since the official launch of ChatGPT. Emily and Alex kick off the new year unraveling these truly fantastical stories.References:OpenAI o3 Breakthrough High Score on ARC-AGI-PubFrom the blog of Sam Altman: ReflectionsMore about the ARC Prizeo3's environmental impactThe brain is a computer i...

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60:47

Episode 47: Hell is Other People's AI Hype

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/12/30

It’s been a long year in the AI hype mines. And no matter how many claims Emily and Alex debunk, there's always a backlog of Fresh AI Hell. This week, another whirlwind attempt to clear it, with plenty of palate cleansers along the way.Fresh AI Hell:Part I: EducationMedical residency assignments"AI generated" UCLA course"Could ChatGPT get an engineering degree?"AI letters of recommendationChaser: 'AI' isn't Tinkerbell and we don’t have to clapPart II: Potpourri, as in really rottenAI x parent...

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62:35

Episode 46: AGI Funny Business (Model), with Brian...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/12/18

Once upon a time, artificial general intelligence was the only business plan OpenAI seemed to have. Tech journalist Brian Merchant joins Emily and Alex for a time warp to the beginning of the current wave of AI hype, nearly a decade ago. And it sure seemed like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and company were luring investor dollars to their newly-formed venture solely on the hand-wavy promise that someday, LLMs themselves would figure out how to turn a profit.Brian Merchant is an author, journalist i...

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60:33

Episode 45: Billionaires, Influencers, and Ed Tech...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/11/26

From Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg, billionaires with no education expertise keep using their big names and big dollars to hype LLMs for classrooms. Promising ‘comprehensive AI tutors', or just ‘educator-informed’ tools to address understaffed classrooms, this hype is just another round of Silicon Valley pointing to real problems -- under-supported school systems -- but then directing attention and resources to their favorite toys. Former educator and DAIR research fellow Adrienne Williams jo...

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60:11

Episode 44: OpenAI's Ridiculous 'Reasoning'

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/11/13

The company behind ChatGPT is back with bombastic claim that their new o1 model is capable of so-called "complex reasoning." Ever-faithful, Alex and Emily tear it apart. Plus the flaws in a tech publication's new 'AI hype index,' and some palette-cleansing new regulation against data-scraping worker surveillance.References:OpenAI: Learning to reason with LLMsHow reasoning worksGPQA, a 'graduate-level' Q&A benchmark systemFresh AI Hell:MIT Technology Review's AI 'AI hype index'CFPB Takes A...

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61:22

Episode 43: AI Companies Gamble with Everyone's...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/10/31

Technology journalist Paris Marx joins Alex and Emily for a conversation about the environmental harms of the giant data centers and other water- and energy-hungry infrastructure at the heart of LLMs and other generative tools like ChatGPT -- and why the hand-wavy assurances of CEOs that 'AI will fix global warming' are just magical thinking, ignoring a genuine climate cost and imperiling the clean energy transition in the US.Paris Marx is a tech journalist and host of the podcast Tech Won’t ...

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59:54

Episode 42: Stop Trying to Make 'AI Scientist'...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/10/10

Can “AI” do your science for you? Should it be your co-author? Or, as one company asks, boldly and breathlessly, “Can we automate the entire process of research itself?”Major scientific journals have banned the use of tools like ChatGPT in the writing of research papers. But people keep trying to make “AI Scientists” a thing. Just ask your chatbot for some research questions, or have it synthesize some human subjects to save you time on surveys.Alex and Emily explain why so-called “fully auto...

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61:28

Episode 41: Sweating into AI Fall, September 9 2024

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/09/26

Did your summer feel like an unending barrage of terrible ideas for how to use “AI”? You’re not alone. It's time for Emily and Alex to clear out the poison, purge some backlog, and take another journey through AI hell -- from surveillance of emotions, to continued hype in education and art.Fresh AI Hell:Synthetic data for Hollywood test screeningsNaNoWriMo's AI failAI is built on exploitationNaNoWriMo sponsored by an AI writing companyNaNoWriMo's AI writing sponsor creates bad writingAI assis...

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60:43

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, Episode 40: Elders Need...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/09/13

Dr. Clara Berridge joins Alex and Emily to talk about the many 'uses' for generative AI in elder care -- from "companionship," to "coaching" like medication reminders and other encouragements toward healthier (and, for insurers, cost-saving) behavior. But these technologies also come with questionable data practices and privacy violations. And as populations grow older on average globally, technology such as chatbots is often used to sidestep real solutions to providing meaningful care, while...

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62:04

Episode 39: Newsrooms Pivot to Bullshit (feat. Sam Cole)

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/08/29

The Washington Post is going all in on AI -- surely this won't be a repeat of any past, disastrous newsroom pivots! 404 Media journalist Samantha Cole joins to talk journalism, LLMs, and why synthetic text is the antithesis of good reporting.References:The Washington Post Tells Staff It’s Pivoting to AI: "AI everywhere in our newsroom."Response: Defector Media Promotes Devin The Dugong To Chief AI Officer, Unveils First AI-Generated BlogThe Washington Post's First AI Strategy Editor Talks LLM...

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62:29

Episode 38: Deflating Zoom's 'Digital Twin,' July 29...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/08/14

Could this meeting have been an e-mail that you didn't even have to read? Emily and Alex are tearing into the lofty ambitions of Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, who claims the future is a LLM-powered 'digital twin' that can attend meetings in your stead, make decisions for you, and even be tuned to different parameters with just the click of a button.References:The CEO of Zoom wants AI clones in meetingsAll-knowing machines are a fantasyA reminder of some things chatbots are not good forMedical science s...

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60:26

Episode 37: Chatbots Aren't Nurses (feat. Michelle...

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 ·

2024/08/02

We regret to report that companies are still trying to make generative AI that can 'transform' healthcare -- but without investing in the wellbeing of healthcare workers or other aspects of actual patient care. Registered nurse and nursing care advocate Michelle Mahon joins Emily and Alex to explain why generative AI falls far, far short of the work nurses do.Michelle Mahon is the Director of Nursing Practice with National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the country. ...

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