Sam Bennett
@sj-bennett.bsky.social
🏳️⚧️ he/him
👀 AI Metascience Fellow @Durham Uni - AI Ethics & Society www.ai-ethics.org - AI and Medical Humanities - www.sj-bennett.com
👀 AI Metascience Fellow @Durham Uni - AI Ethics & Society www.ai-ethics.org - AI and Medical Humanities - www.sj-bennett.com
Pinned
Sam Bennett
@sj-bennett.bsky.social
· Jun 30
Artificial Intelligence and the ethics of navigating ambiguity - SJ Bennett, 2025
This paper examines ambiguity within AI practice, arguing for an ethics of AI which stays with fundamental ambiguities and accounts for their complex socio-mate...
journals.sagepub.com
🎉 A lovely wedding present from Big Data & Society! I bring together an ethnographic study of AI practitioners with Simone de Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity, exploring how ambiguity shapes AI practice and ethics
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
❔Does anyone know of groups where disabled people/people w chronic conditions and working in Critical Data Studies/AI can meet up? Like a Queer in AI but for disabled folks? I constantly think about how helpful it might be to talk to other people navigating disability, who are doing similar work
November 27, 2025 at 11:35 AM
❔Does anyone know of groups where disabled people/people w chronic conditions and working in Critical Data Studies/AI can meet up? Like a Queer in AI but for disabled folks? I constantly think about how helpful it might be to talk to other people navigating disability, who are doing similar work
Reposted by Sam Bennett
In newly leaked audio, Peter Thiel admits he urged JD Vance to ignore Pope Leo XIV on moral questions — including the ethical development of AI.
He goes even further, branding Leo “the woke American pope” and suggesting he’s a tool of the Antichrist.
He goes even further, branding Leo “the woke American pope” and suggesting he’s a tool of the Antichrist.
NEW: JD Vance’s Top Donor Suggests Pope Leo XIV is Antichrist
In a leaked lecture, Peter Thiel says he’s urged Vance to ignore the pope on moral questions — and simply pray for him.
www.thelettersfromleo.com
November 25, 2025 at 10:43 AM
In newly leaked audio, Peter Thiel admits he urged JD Vance to ignore Pope Leo XIV on moral questions — including the ethical development of AI.
He goes even further, branding Leo “the woke American pope” and suggesting he’s a tool of the Antichrist.
He goes even further, branding Leo “the woke American pope” and suggesting he’s a tool of the Antichrist.
Reposted by Sam Bennett
I'm officially a Doctor. I'm very proud of the work I did on the harms of language technologies, my thesis here: lnkd.in/eh6FqZkZ
It is a privilege to graduate, when not a single university still stands in Gaza.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me, in particular @bjoernross.bsky.social.
It is a privilege to graduate, when not a single university still stands in Gaza.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me, in particular @bjoernross.bsky.social.
November 25, 2025 at 5:45 PM
I'm officially a Doctor. I'm very proud of the work I did on the harms of language technologies, my thesis here: lnkd.in/eh6FqZkZ
It is a privilege to graduate, when not a single university still stands in Gaza.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me, in particular @bjoernross.bsky.social.
It is a privilege to graduate, when not a single university still stands in Gaza.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me, in particular @bjoernross.bsky.social.
📣 Last few tickets left now!!
✨exploring empirical encounters with computational 'intelligence' - an in-person event with Edinburgh’s DARE project researchers @nicolasugden.bsky.social, Abby King and Max Perry, looking at how data is being used in UK healthcare and biomedical research.
⬇️ sign up below!
shorturl.at/Yj91W
⬇️ sign up below!
shorturl.at/Yj91W
Data-Driven Healthcare
Empirical encounters with computational 'intelligence'
shorturl.at
November 26, 2025 at 11:50 AM
📣 Last few tickets left now!!
Reposted by Sam Bennett
My student Arlene Lo has a paper on the philosophical underpinnings of Canada's attempts to integrate Indigenous groups into its environmental impact assessments. It's now out in (appropriately enough!) the Canadian journal of philosophy. It's good, check it out!
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
November 26, 2025 at 8:06 AM
My student Arlene Lo has a paper on the philosophical underpinnings of Canada's attempts to integrate Indigenous groups into its environmental impact assessments. It's now out in (appropriately enough!) the Canadian journal of philosophy. It's good, check it out!
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Reposted by Sam Bennett
I think the shortest version of why LLMs are an anti education technology is that education is fundamentally about making shared context to understand ourselves, each other, and the world
And by design LLMs destroy shared context
And by design LLMs destroy shared context
November 23, 2025 at 12:57 PM
I think the shortest version of why LLMs are an anti education technology is that education is fundamentally about making shared context to understand ourselves, each other, and the world
And by design LLMs destroy shared context
And by design LLMs destroy shared context
Our final event of the semester is happening on December 3rd! Interested in critical health data studies? Come along to High School Yards :)
✨exploring empirical encounters with computational 'intelligence' - an in-person event with Edinburgh’s DARE project researchers @nicolasugden.bsky.social, Abby King and Max Perry, looking at how data is being used in UK healthcare and biomedical research.
⬇️ sign up below!
shorturl.at/Yj91W
⬇️ sign up below!
shorturl.at/Yj91W
Data-Driven Healthcare
Empirical encounters with computational 'intelligence'
shorturl.at
November 18, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Our final event of the semester is happening on December 3rd! Interested in critical health data studies? Come along to High School Yards :)
Reposted by Sam Bennett
🔔new paper alert🔔
I argue that language technologies are usefully understood as a type of language management (i.e., ways of changing how people use and think about language) -- especially in the workplace -- connecting critical work on AI with language policy
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
I argue that language technologies are usefully understood as a type of language management (i.e., ways of changing how people use and think about language) -- especially in the workplace -- connecting critical work on AI with language policy
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Defining language and managing its use: Language technology as language management
Language technologies such as voice user interfaces, large language models and machine translation tools are embedded in an ever-growing range of digi…
www.sciencedirect.com
November 13, 2025 at 1:36 PM
🔔new paper alert🔔
I argue that language technologies are usefully understood as a type of language management (i.e., ways of changing how people use and think about language) -- especially in the workplace -- connecting critical work on AI with language policy
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
I argue that language technologies are usefully understood as a type of language management (i.e., ways of changing how people use and think about language) -- especially in the workplace -- connecting critical work on AI with language policy
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Sam Bennett
Heading to Edinburgh next week for this exciting event on 🤖🏳️⚧️Gender and the Machine🧟♀️🧑💻, where @naz-andalibi.bsky.social and I will be talking about our research!
Thanks to @sj-bennett.bsky.social and @kevinguyan.bsky.social for organizing!
Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gender-and...
Thanks to @sj-bennett.bsky.social and @kevinguyan.bsky.social for organizing!
Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gender-and...
Gender and the Machine: Trans Tech, Emotion and AI
Join us for this afternoon of events discussing gender, marginalisation and emotion in AI and digital technologies
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 13, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Heading to Edinburgh next week for this exciting event on 🤖🏳️⚧️Gender and the Machine🧟♀️🧑💻, where @naz-andalibi.bsky.social and I will be talking about our research!
Thanks to @sj-bennett.bsky.social and @kevinguyan.bsky.social for organizing!
Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gender-and...
Thanks to @sj-bennett.bsky.social and @kevinguyan.bsky.social for organizing!
Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gender-and...
Reposted by Sam Bennett
Can’t wait for this!! Only a few weeks away now🕺
✨📣 Excited to announce our upcoming event GENDER AND THE MACHINE!
Join us on Nov 20th for an afternoon exploring gender, marginalisation and emotion in tech - talks by @haimson.bsky.social and @naz-andalibi.bsky.social, plus panel discussion and networking reception
⬇️ sign up
shorturl.at/QlMfx
Join us on Nov 20th for an afternoon exploring gender, marginalisation and emotion in tech - talks by @haimson.bsky.social and @naz-andalibi.bsky.social, plus panel discussion and networking reception
⬇️ sign up
shorturl.at/QlMfx
Gender and the Machine: Trans Tech, Emotion and AI
Join us for this afternoon of events discussing gender, marginalisation and emotion in AI and digital technologies
shorturl.at
November 3, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Can’t wait for this!! Only a few weeks away now🕺
Reposted by Sam Bennett
'Resisting AI' foreshadowed much of our technofascist moment, but a lot has happened since publication. Why does a broken tech attract such huge commitments? How can it burn so much energy yet claim to save the planet? And can decomputing offer an escape from AI-drive nihilism?
On Monday, I'll be talking with Andrés Saenz de Sicilia of The Philosopher magazine about why it's more important than ever to resist AI, and how we can develop a convivial technopolitics. Register for free at www.thephilosopher1923.org/events/ai-an...
October 31, 2025 at 7:10 AM
'Resisting AI' foreshadowed much of our technofascist moment, but a lot has happened since publication. Why does a broken tech attract such huge commitments? How can it burn so much energy yet claim to save the planet? And can decomputing offer an escape from AI-drive nihilism?
Reposted by Sam Bennett
hear me talk about how AI is *really* ruining your job, not by taking it but by undermining your autonomy, enabling (nay, encouraging) your boss to monitor and assess you all the time, and removing everything that sparks joy in your working day
Edinburgh (🥰), 28/11!
Edinburgh (🥰), 28/11!
Less than a month to go until our Language and Society Scotland (LASS) event on Language and AI.
Sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/language-a...
Sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/language-a...
Language and Society Scotland: Language & AI
Language and Society Scotland (LASS) network event on "Language & AI".
www.eventbrite.co.uk
October 30, 2025 at 3:52 PM
hear me talk about how AI is *really* ruining your job, not by taking it but by undermining your autonomy, enabling (nay, encouraging) your boss to monitor and assess you all the time, and removing everything that sparks joy in your working day
Edinburgh (🥰), 28/11!
Edinburgh (🥰), 28/11!
Reposted by Sam Bennett
"UN refugee agency official Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet said that the new arrivals told stories of widespread ethnic and politically motivated killings, including reports of people with disabilities shot dead because they were unable to flee"
this keeps getting worse
www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...
this keeps getting worse
www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...
Sudan’s paramilitary killed hundreds including hospital patients in Darfur, residents say
Sudan’s paramilitary forces killed hundreds of people including patients in a hospital after they seized el-Fasher city in the western Darfur region over the weekend, according to the UN, displaced re...
www.ctvnews.ca
October 29, 2025 at 4:37 PM
"UN refugee agency official Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet said that the new arrivals told stories of widespread ethnic and politically motivated killings, including reports of people with disabilities shot dead because they were unable to flee"
this keeps getting worse
www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...
this keeps getting worse
www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...
Reposted by Sam Bennett
"If de Waal is anywhere close to right, this conflict will have killed 7.5 percent of the prewar population of Gaza in just two years." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...
Opinion | What Happened in Gaza Might Be Even Worse Than We Think
www.nytimes.com
October 23, 2025 at 2:08 PM
"If de Waal is anywhere close to right, this conflict will have killed 7.5 percent of the prewar population of Gaza in just two years." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...
Reposted by Sam Bennett
Want to know more about #syntheticdata #assetization, #blockchain and #cloudinfrastructures in #finance? In this paper for @financeandspace.bsky.social , I talk about those topics, plus how synthetic data might be reworking financial #subjectivities! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
October 17, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Want to know more about #syntheticdata #assetization, #blockchain and #cloudinfrastructures in #finance? In this paper for @financeandspace.bsky.social , I talk about those topics, plus how synthetic data might be reworking financial #subjectivities! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Our second event of the semester is next week! 🎉
✨ Join us Oct 22nd for Beren Sekerci's talk exploring material agency and hybridity in biohybrid robotics - artifacts which are neither fully living nor fully robotic, designed by both AI and humans
⬇️ Find out more and sign up below!
shorturl.at/cm4uP
⬇️ Find out more and sign up below!
shorturl.at/cm4uP
"A New Class of Artifact?"
Exploring Hybridity and Intersecting Agencies in Biohybrid Robotics with Beren Sekerci
shorturl.at
October 16, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Our second event of the semester is next week! 🎉
✨excited to start my UKRI AI Metascience fellowship, where I’ll examine how AI-generated synthetic data is (re)shaping medical research cultures and knowledge practices. Super happy to be staying at Durham University with @amoorelouise.bsky.social as my mentor!
www.ukri.org/news/interna...
www.ukri.org/news/interna...
International fellowships to explore AI’s impact on science
New £4 million programme funds early career researchers in the UK, US and Canada to investigate how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming science.
www.ukri.org
October 9, 2025 at 6:53 PM
✨excited to start my UKRI AI Metascience fellowship, where I’ll examine how AI-generated synthetic data is (re)shaping medical research cultures and knowledge practices. Super happy to be staying at Durham University with @amoorelouise.bsky.social as my mentor!
www.ukri.org/news/interna...
www.ukri.org/news/interna...
Reposted by Sam Bennett
New article from the Algorithmic Societies group at Durham where theorize prompting as "a mutation in the exercise of political power, beyond the direct command and even the more indirect ‘action at a distance’ characteristic of liberal governmentality...." www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Politics of the prompt: Government in the age of generative AI
This paper addresses the politics of the technique of prompting in machine learning, at a time when bureaucratic and democratic government is undergoing transformation. Drawing on the case of the U...
www.tandfonline.com
October 8, 2025 at 8:27 AM
New article from the Algorithmic Societies group at Durham where theorize prompting as "a mutation in the exercise of political power, beyond the direct command and even the more indirect ‘action at a distance’ characteristic of liberal governmentality...." www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Sam Bennett
“Computation has now been reconfigured by machine learning…” Looks awesome: events.humanitix.com/1000platform...
Adrian Mackenzie and Anna Munster Book Launch
Book launch event for '1000 Platforms' by Prof Adrian Mackenzie (ANU) and 'DeepAesthetics' by Prof Anna Munster (UNSW), hosted at ANU
events.humanitix.com
October 6, 2025 at 8:02 AM
“Computation has now been reconfigured by machine learning…” Looks awesome: events.humanitix.com/1000platform...
This is going to be a really engaging and interesting workshop! If you’re around in Edinburgh next Friday, you should come along :)
Join us in-person for a guided discussion on fine-tuning LLMs with Lara Dal Molin. In this hands-on session, you can interact with the base version of the model before fine-tuning, discussing the ethical dimensions and shortcomings of fine-tuning
🗓️ 10th Oct, 4-5.30pm
⬇️ sign up:
shorturl.at/OqQGf
🗓️ 10th Oct, 4-5.30pm
⬇️ sign up:
shorturl.at/OqQGf
Fine-Tuning as Repair? Discussing and Testing a Large Language Model
Join us for a discussion on the practice of fine-tuning Large Language Models and test a model fine-tuned on Edinburgh-based perspectives!
shorturl.at
October 3, 2025 at 1:50 PM
This is going to be a really engaging and interesting workshop! If you’re around in Edinburgh next Friday, you should come along :)
Reposted by Sam Bennett
"A Luddite is someone who is against the *abuse* - not the use - of technology."
The kids get it.
The kids get it.
Here's why a group of NYC teens is rejecting cellphones and social media
These Brooklyn students formed a group to try to beat their own addictive behavior around technology.
www.cbsnews.com
September 27, 2025 at 3:44 PM
"A Luddite is someone who is against the *abuse* - not the use - of technology."
The kids get it.
The kids get it.
Reposted by Sam Bennett
Consider the annihilation of agricultural land alongside the genocide – and grasp the chilling totality of this attempt to eliminate all life www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Israel’s ecocide in Gaza sends this message: even if we stopped dropping bombs, you couldn’t live here | George Monbiot
Consider the annihilation of agricultural land alongside the genocide – and grasp the chilling totality of this attempt to eliminate all life, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
September 27, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Consider the annihilation of agricultural land alongside the genocide – and grasp the chilling totality of this attempt to eliminate all life www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Sam Bennett
this exists it is called thinking
September 20, 2025 at 12:15 PM
this exists it is called thinking