Shannon Vallor

Shannon Vallor

@shannonvallor.bsky.social

507

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Philosopher/AI Ethicist at the University of Edinburgh, BRAID co-Director, author of Technology and the Virtues (2016) and The AI Mirror (2024). Views my own.

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The world is chaos but please enjoy this road sign from the Scottish Highlands which exudes the ‘fuck-it that’s close enough’ energy I aspire to get me through the week

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An apt meme making rounds

Starting the second book of my Outer Hebrides vacation reading, @aptshadow.bsky.social’s Service Model, and am stopped dead by that one line in a book that is, as the interyouth used to say, a ‘whole mood’: “I wish to report an error in the way that everything works.”

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On that “data centers don’t consume water” talking point.

“In the back end, these algorithms that need to be running for any generative AI model are fundamentally very, very different from the traditional kind of Google Search or email…”

AI's Energy Demands Are Out of Control. Welcome to the Internet's Hyper-Consumption Erawww.wired.com Generative artificial intelligence tools, now part of the everyday user experience online, are causing stress on local power grids and mass water evaporation.

Just finished @antonhur.com’s Toward Eternity and it’s stunning. I honestly don’t know how people survive this world without books. Looking forward to our conversation at the Edinburgh Book Festival Anton!

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Mid-career in academia is tough. So I’m really pleased we’ve opened the call for @britishacademy.bsky.social mid-career fellowships. These free you from commitments for a period of 6-12 months, to devote to the completion of a major piece of research www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/mid-...

Have long been a Paperback Paradise fan (Love me some Crabitalism!) but this one is too real

Book

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I’ll take “Bad Analogies” for $1000, LeVar.

“English teachers say AI tools can help them grade papers faster, get students more feedback, and improve their learning experience. But guidelines are vague and adoption by teachers and districts is spotty.”

California Teachers are Using AI to Grade Papers. Who’s Grading the AI?www.the74million.org California schools are using more chatbots, and teachers are using them to grade papers and give students feedback.

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To quote another person on here after Poland’s election (can’t remember who immediately): “the thing about just voting harder is that sometimes it fucking works”

My annual leave is starting and I am so excited about my pile of beach reading. I always bring 3-4 books so I can decide what I feel like reading on the day. Or if it rains all week I can read them all—it’s Scotland.

Watching a large left coalition overtake the far right in France thanks to strategic cooperation between centre and left to safeguard the country from the slide into fascism. I wish I could imagine that happening in America.

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'Sometimes things don't go, after all, from bad to worse' Thinking a lot about this poem today.

Looking forward to heading to Boston area in a few weeks for TexneCon and my book event July 26th at 7pm at the Harvard Bookstore, in conversation with the amazing Sasha Costanza-Chock: free to join! Get a book signed! www.harvard.com/event/shanno...

Shannon Vallor at Harvard Book Store - Events - Harvard Book Storewww.harvard.com

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You had me at “exceedingly dry in-jokes for recherché subcultures”

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Isn't it interesting that they're trying to frame themselves as initiating *that* war instead of the Civil War? Wannabe Confederates still don't like being called what they are. Probably because it reminds them they lost the first time.

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" www.mediamatters.org/project-2025...

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

So The Acolyte is not bad, getting kinda good actually. Nowhere near the sublime Andor, not fun like the Mandalorian, but still way better than Ahsoka, Boba Fett and Kenobi. Plus, Manny Jacinto!

when a virulently anti-trans colleague asks me to lend my free time or energy to any activity

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students use AI to generate essays; educators use AI to grade it… AI that is built on the backbone of stolen data and packaged as a shiny EdTech tool that educational institutes have to pay a fortune for… folks, do you see who benefits from all of this?

No matter who says that these tools aren’t intended to replace teachers or how many times it’s said, that’s exactly what will happen. (Or it will be used as a justification for eliminating teacher jobs because now teachers can “grade” more efficiently) www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-t...

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"It marks the second incident in two months involving a Tesla’s near miss-with a train while utilising its driver assistance system." You can tell Tesla is close to "solving self-driving" because they are down to the tough edge cases like *checks notes* trains nz.news.yahoo.com/tesla-autopi...

Tesla autopilot appears to veer electric vehicle onto train track it mistook for roadnz.news.yahoo.com Local police urged drivers to remain ‘vigilant while using Tesla's autopilot feature,’ noting that it ‘can fail’

The lifespan of a Scottish summer is approximately that of an avocado

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Very happy to join @CentreTMFutures as a Senior Research Affiliate. Truly a fantastic community of practice that has been built in Edinburgh. www.technomoralfutures.uk/people/#our-...

Centre for Technomoral Futures - Our Peoplewww.technomoralfutures.uk

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FYI y'all, Robophilosophy is open for registration and this list of keynotes is pretty amazing, something for everyone cas.au.dk/en/robophilo...

Robophilosophy Conference 2024cas.au.dk

I clicked on this link right before trying to go to sleep and I got exactly what I deserved www.npr.org/2024/06/29/n...

A robot gets a face of living ‘skin’ that allows it to smilewww.npr.org If humanoid robots make you a bit queasy — would it help if they had fleshy faces that can smile at you?

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Murderbot is science fiction because it imagines a world in which the entire history of digital media hasn't all been taken down for cost savings or tax write offs

The Bear S3 being dropped all at once is wrong. It’s like the most beautiful, delicious dessert in the world. You need to pause and breathe between bites.

This majestic creature

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I like the conspiracy theories about how chatGPT has "gotten dumber" because while it's possible they've railroaded it etc it's also just very obvious that the dazzle of the trick wears off fairly quick when you start needing consistent answers

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LLMs are useless for lawyering and other tasks involving actual analysis and understanding not because the technology hasn't gotten there yet, but because that's fundamentally not what statistical word association is capable of doing. Not only can't it understand, it's not even trying to understand.