The AI industry is courting the humanities — but it is asking the wrong questions
Why this philosopher turned down Anthropic
The AI industry is courting the humanities — but it is asking the wrong questions
Anthropomorphism Is Breaking Our Ability to Judge AI
Tech Policy Press fellow James Ball asks, how should we interact with a technology designed to ‘speak’ with us on what appear to be human terms?
Anthropomorphism in AI: hype and fallacy
This essay focuses on anthropomorphism as both a form of hype and fallacy. As a form of hype, anthropomorphism is shown to exaggerate AI capabilities and performance by attributing human-like traits to systems that do not possess them. As a fallacy, anthropomorphism is shown to distort moral judgments about AI, such as those concerning its moral character and status, as well as judgments of responsibility and trust. By focusing on these two dimensions of anthropomorphism in AI, the essay highlights negative ethical consequences of the phenomenon in this field.
Anthropomorphism in AI: hype and fallacy
This essay focuses on anthropomorphism as both a form of hype and fallacy. As a form of hype, anthropomorphism is shown to exaggerate AI capabilities and performance by attributing human-like traits to systems that do not possess them. As a fallacy, anthropomorphism is shown to distort moral judgments about AI, such as those concerning its moral character and status, as well as judgments of responsibility and trust. By focusing on these two dimensions of anthropomorphism in AI, the essay highlights negative ethical consequences of the phenomenon in this field.
"AI" is Automated Inequality
Tech bros still dominate the discussions about so-called "AI" with false claims. Even most "AI"-critical researchers spend much of their time meticulously debunking (always only a subset of) claims, leaving vast areas of the economic consequences of "AI" unexplored. (Even the "AI"-evangelist Economi
AI, Ethics, and Society — Home
2026 Cosmos HAI Lab Lecture with Jack Clark, Co-founder of Anthropic
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Human Thought
This research paper examines, from a multidimensional perspective (cognitive, social, ethical, and philosophical), how AI is transforming human thought. It highlights a cognitive offloading effect: the externalization of mental functions to AI can reduce intellectual engagement and weaken critical thinking. On the social level, algorithmic personalization creates filter bubbles that limit the diversity of opinions and can lead to the homogenization of thought and polarization. This research also describes the mechanisms of algorithmic manipulation (exploitation of cognitive biases, automated disinformation, etc.) that amplify AI's power of influence. Finally, the question of potential artificial consciousness is discussed, along with its ethical implications. The report as a whole underscores the risks that AI poses to human intellectual autonomy and creativity, while proposing avenues (education, transparency, governance) to align AI development with the interests of humanity.
The AI Researcher Who Just Quit Anthropic Says It’s ‘Crunch Time for Humanity’
Jacob Coxon talks to WIRED about the “mini Manhattan project” inside Anthropic, the problem with alignment, and why AI labs have just a few years left to make their systems safe.
233. "The Illusion of Thinking" — Thoughts on This Important Paper
This is a fantastic paper. I just love it. tl;dr AI is not human. Anthropomorphization has been bad for AI, LLMs, and Chat. Clippy walked so today's AI could run.
‘You’re effed’: Palantir CEO says AI ‘will destroy humanities jobs’ – but Gen Z workers are apparently deliberately sabotaging AI rollouts in an effort to fight back
Gen Z workers are fighting against their own redundancy
Don't treat surface-level metaphors about AI as if they describe fundamental reality
Debates about whether AI is a “tool” or whether it’s wrong to “anthropomorphize” it often seem confused about what reality is made of
How to talk about "AI" without adding to the anthropomorphization
Emily M. Bender and Nanna Inie In our op-ed for Tech Policy Press ("We Need to Talk About How We Talk About 'AI'"), we made the case against the...
AI Philosophy Competition
The AI Philosophy Competition invites primarily AI-generated philosophy essays, judged by philosophers, to gauge the philosophical capabilities of AI. Organised by Zachary Goodsell.
I think it’s telling that people very interested in AI (like Eugene and myself) still have no interest in using it as a proxy for human communication. “Being a good writer” is not the same thing as having social agency, and making the models even better at writing won’t change that.
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒
When you deploy heavily LLM text, you currently have no way to prove that you actually read it and therefore cannot convince me to read it
read the article making this argument and it just reinforced the 3d printing analogy. the industry hype with AI is 100x larger, but the pattern was a similar "this is going to change humanity" to "this is going to revolutionize specific industries" to "this will be a fun hobby for eccentrics"
Adam Conover
I’m sorry but “everyone is going to use AI to code their own apps” sounds like “everyone is going to learn HTML and code their own websites.“ like … have you met people? no they’re not
