Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her)Feb 21

I was disappointed to read Cory Doctorow's post where he got weirdly defensive about his LLM use and started arguing with an imaginary foe.

@tante has a very thoughtful reply here:

https://tante.cc/2026/02/20/acting-ethical-in-an-imperfect-world/
A few further comments, šŸ§µ>>

Acting ethically in an imperfect world

Life is complicated. Regardless of what your beliefs or politics or ethics are, the way that we set up our society and economy will often force you to act against them: You might not want to fly somewhere but your employer will not accept another mode of transportation, you want to eat vegan but are [ā€¦]

Smashing Frames
Show threadProf. Emily M. Bender(she/her)Feb 21
It was particularly disappointing to see Doctorow misconstrue (and thus, if he is believed) undermine the work that many of us are doing to shine a light on the ways in which the ideology of "AI" and the specific ways in which LLMs and other "AI" products are created do real harm.
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Show threadProf. Emily M. Bender(she/her)Feb 21

I also want to point out (again) the ways in which lumping together all uses of LMs (like the lumping of technologies into "AI") obscures the issues at hand.

Language modeling is a useful component of many technologies that can be built without extractive, exploitative means. Take the automatic transcription built by and for the Māori people -- there's te reo Māori language model that's part of that.
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Show threadWulfyā€”Speaker to the machinesFeb 21

@emilymbender

Oh c'mon! Let not facts stand in the way of the Luddite hordes...
...least you be denounced as a broligarch/techbro by the righteous!

Show threadmancube
@n_dimension @emilymbender tell us more about luddism you clearly know a lot about it
Feb 22 at 9:42pmWeb
Show threadWulfyā€”Speaker to the machinesFeb 22

@emilymbender @mancube

The #luddites lost.

There were many reasons. Not the least being that the state deployed more soldiers against them than against Napoleon... And hanged 17 ringleaders.

But the main reason was THE LUDDITES NEVER FORMED A NATIONAL POLITICAL REPRESENTATION!

Stop posting angry memes. Get off your fat/scrawny arses and become politically active.
#regulateai

Show threadViolet MadderFeb 23

@n_dimension @emilymbender @mancube

It's a little hard to mount an effective political party when the system is hellbent on murdering you (and uses all the propaganda machinery at its disposal to distort your message and memory). Status quo parties like Republicans and Democrats "fight" each other (and even the terrorists who hate us for our freedoms or whatever) like pro wrestlers putting on a cute show. Managed opposition. Anything close to a real Luddite party they sabotage, co-opt, and/or kill with the focus reserved for REAL threats.

People are trying. A lot of folks whose names you'll never know have died or been locked up and tortured, trying.

Show threadWulfyā€”Speaker to the machinesFeb 23

@emilymbender @mancube @violetmadder

Resisting the opressor is never easy.

4 of my ancestors were killed by the Nazis.
One of whome was in a concentration camp, she died from Tuberculosis.

One survived a bloody battle of Monte Casino storming the mountain, (mainly because he was his division Baker, still counts), My Grandfather was the only survivor of his unit fighting Nazis (He never volunteered).

My Great-Uncle was captured, incarcerated and died in a Nazi concentration camp.

#resistance is never easy.
But we don't have to go full #Luddite yet, we have not exhausted political action yet.

Show threadCyFeb 23
The Luddites didn't even go full Luddite. They felt they had not exhausted political action, then were summarily executed and/or sent to slave colonies. They mailed letters, did public demonstrations, signed petitions, and for their efforts they were beset by bullshitters accusing them of "military-like drills," among other obvious fabrications. They wrecked machinery, then got blamed for death threats. They were blamed for the Pentrich uprising, which itself was caused by the unbearable exploitation of the working class, and not by the working class who justifiably marched on Nottingham. But nobody there was flying some imagined flag of Ned Ludd!

I wasn't there when it went down, but I call it like I see it. A city nearby to me had a lady last week who marched up to city council during a public hearing and held up a petition at them, which they'd been ignoring for months because 19,000 people wanted to revoke the city's permit that they granted to ICE to hole up in there. They freaking swarmed her with cops, and the news dutifully reported that in the wake of this vicious attack, city council members were going to have to start carrying firearms to defend themselves. She's been charged with criminal trespassing. In a public hearing, at city hall. People in power lie like that ALL the TIME. Not even a lot of power. Any "representative" of anyone anywhere in the USA is going to lie that protected, civil acts are dangerous violence that must be stopped with more violence. I can't imagine the UK is much better.

Until someone shows me the "death threats and possibly attacked" magistrates, I'm going to assume the magistrates were lying. Even when they were (supposedly) flying Ned's flag, I'm not holding a single one Luddite to any extremist lens, until I read some record other than that of the total slimeball Samuel Bamford, claiming the protestors opened fire unprovoked, because when the mill owners fired on them, that was just "to intimidate" and shouldn't have been seen as uh... shooting them.

I mean um... going "full Luddite" as you put it is probably a bad idea, since they start murdering people long before that point. So I agree. Just... don't expect them to play by any rule other than "kill people until they stop nattering at me."

#opinions #politics #ProbablyWrong #idk

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