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Suresh Venkatasubramanian

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Suresh Venkatasubramanian is an Indian computer scientist and professor at Brown University. In 2021, Prof. Venkatasubramanian was appointed to the… more

H-index: 44
Computer science 89%
Engineering 5%
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by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

geomblog.bsky.social
@brown.edu rejects the compact. www.brown.edu/sites/defaul...
www.brown.edu
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by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

geomblog.bsky.social
This is a good thread for many reasons, not least of which is that it shows why its important for experts on AI to testify at hearings like this at all levels to counter the FUD and propaganda from industry lobbyists who dismiss valid concerns of lawmakers.
kendraserra.bsky.social
Kendra Albert @kendraserra.bsky.social · 10h
Councilmember Landau asks about whether the City is using AI for public safety.

CIO says no, they aren't.

Councilmember Landau says that it's a matter of public record that the City is using Shotspotter and facial recognition.

#PhillyAIHearing
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

kendraserra.bsky.social
Councilmember Landau asks about whether the City is using AI for public safety.

CIO says no, they aren't.

Councilmember Landau says that it's a matter of public record that the City is using Shotspotter and facial recognition.

#PhillyAIHearing
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

priyald17.bsky.social
MIT on the USG's Compact promising preferential treatment in exchange for specific on-campus changes:

"Fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone"

orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega... 💪
Regarding the Compact | MIT Organization Chart
orgchart.mit.edu
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

natematias.bsky.social
Many people have ideas for AI firms to manage provenance and data agency (copyright, identity spoofing, scraping, tracing data training paths).

But how do we design the needed tech? Great conv recently with Emily Wenger at Duke, who is working on this:

arguslab.pratt.duke.edu/2025/01/01/a...
Reclaiming Data Agency in AI Systems
Building tools to give rightsholders agency over how (or if) their data is used for AI.
arguslab.pratt.duke.edu
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

valentinapy.bsky.social
💡We kicked off the SoLaR workshop at #COLM2025 with a great opinion talk by @michelleding.bsky.social & Jo Gasior Kavishe (joint work with @victorojewale.bsky.social and
@geomblog.bsky.social
) on "Testing LLMs in a sandbox isn't responsible. Focusing on community use and needs is."
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

michelleding.bsky.social
Hi #COLM2025! 🇨🇦 I will be presenting a talk on the importance of community-driven LLM evaluations based on an opinion abstract I wrote with Jo Kavishe, @victorojewale.bsky.social and @geomblog.bsky.social tomorrow at 9:30am in 524b for solar-colm.github.io

Hope to see you there!
Third Workshop on Socially Responsible Language Modelling Research (SoLaR) 2025
COLM 2025 in-person Workshop, October 10th at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, Canada
solar-colm.github.io
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Meredith Broussard, Ben H. Ansell , and 23 more

junoryleejournalism.com
David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Meredith Broussard, Lisa W. Fazio , and 38 more

carlzimmer.com
Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
nyti.ms
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by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

geomblog.bsky.social
Brave runs on a chrome base ad so can use chrome extensions, but conveniently has more aggressive ad blocking features.
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by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

geomblog.bsky.social
The Brave feature "close all tabs to the right of the current tab" is my lifesaver
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by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

geomblog.bsky.social
Great policy brief from @datasociety.bsky.social - happy to see that it draws from award-winning work by @r-jy.bsky.social and @lucyq.bsky.social at AIES last year.
datasociety.bsky.social
Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 7d
“Privacy-preserving” isn’t as private as you might think. Our new brief, published in collab w @powerswitchaction.org & Coworker, exposes how so-called “privacy-preserving” technologies can actually enable *more* worker surveillance — and what we can do about it. datasociety.net/library/the-...
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Meredith Broussard

datasociety.bsky.social
“Privacy-preserving” isn’t as private as you might think. Our new brief, published in collab w @powerswitchaction.org & Coworker, exposes how so-called “privacy-preserving” technologies can actually enable *more* worker surveillance — and what we can do about it. datasociety.net/library/the-...
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

thebulletin.org
"AI systems are used to make invisible, inscrutable judgements that will affect our lives in ways we may not even begin to see," says Suresh Venkatasubramanian @geomblog.bsky.social.

"It sounds Kafkaesque because it is Kafkaesque."
How AI is fueling surveillance capitalism and undermining democracy
While some believe AI can be used to improve lives, others may exploit this knowledge for financial gain.
youtu.be
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by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

geomblog.bsky.social
The Bulletin made a short video presentation to accompany the article. It's great especially if you want to see me gesticulating wildly at every word I say (My parents used to call me Magnus Pyke when I was a child, and that clearly hasn't gone away)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn8_...
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

cyberlyra.bsky.social
@geomblog.bsky.social YESS! "Intimacy Machines" is officially my new fave oxymoron.

(tough competition what with "gender-neutral masculine standard" floating around out there)
1 3

by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

geomblog.bsky.social
I said a thing :).
hypervisible.blacksky.app
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 12d
Sick burn. finance.yahoo.com/news/22-old-...
Critics see something different. Suresh Venkatasubramanian, director of the Center for Technological Responsibility, Reimagination, and Redesign at Brown University, said that Friend is clearly an example of a frothy AI company, but that it also bore a “pernicious” resemblance to a mostly forgotten early-20th-century fad: “radium necklaces.”

When Marie Curie’s new glowing discovery first hit the market, jewelers embedded radium in pendants and bracelets and sold them as chic wellness accessories—until decades later, people started dying of cancer.

“I look at Friend and I think, ‘Are we making the same mistake?’” Venkatasubramanian told Fortune. “We’re rushing these intimacy machines into people’s lives with no evidence they’re safe, or even helpful.”
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by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

geomblog.bsky.social
A) you are too kind. B) I was really annoyed :)
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by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

geomblog.bsky.social
I didn't know the article had landed :). Thanks!
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

hypervisible.blacksky.app
Sick burn. finance.yahoo.com/news/22-old-...
Critics see something different. Suresh Venkatasubramanian, director of the Center for Technological Responsibility, Reimagination, and Redesign at Brown University, said that Friend is clearly an example of a frothy AI company, but that it also bore a “pernicious” resemblance to a mostly forgotten early-20th-century fad: “radium necklaces.”

When Marie Curie’s new glowing discovery first hit the market, jewelers embedded radium in pendants and bracelets and sold them as chic wellness accessories—until decades later, people started dying of cancer.

“I look at Friend and I think, ‘Are we making the same mistake?’” Venkatasubramanian told Fortune. “We’re rushing these intimacy machines into people’s lives with no evidence they’re safe, or even helpful.”
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Nandita Sharma, Will Jennings , and 17 more

maaloufmd.bsky.social
My husband was detained by ICE today

Juan Muñoz, an American citizen, father of 2, and local government official, was peacefully protesting w. other elected officials. He was assaulted and taken away

I have had zero contact or updates since

#SOS
@duckworth.senate.gov @durbin.senate.gov
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

amo.house.gov
Joined ABC News Live to discuss the Trump and Republicans’ disastrous government shutdown that’s leaving Americans poorer and sicker.

I’m fighting to end the cuts, lower costs, and save health care. Watch here 📺
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by Suresh Venkatasubramanian — Reposted by Jennifer A. Richeson

geomblog.bsky.social
This was expected, but is also going to be a disaster when it comes to dealing with bias in algorithmic tools for employment.

Source: AP News
search.app/kuYRD
Civil rights agency drops a key tool used to investigate workplace discrimination
The U.S. civil rights agency responsible for enforcing worker rights will stop investigating complaints about company policies that don’t explicitly discriminate but may disproportionately harm certai...
search.app
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

elizabethjoh.bsky.social
Not great to be caught in a tug of war between the 2:
"Newsom on Thursday threatened to cut “billions” in state funding from any CA campus that signs a Trump administration compact and agrees to sweeping and largely conservative campus policies in exchange" for fed $ www.latimes.com/california/s...
Newsom threatens to cut state funding to universities that sign Trump’s political compact
The White House is asking nine major universities, including USC, to commit to President Trump’s political priorities in exchange for more favorable access to federal money.
www.latimes.com
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Kate Starbird

jameeljaffer.bsky.social
Just noting that a university that signed this compact would be agreeing to gut clinics and institutes like, say, the Knight Institute, whose mandate is to promote free speech and press freedom. What would it even mean for us to be “neutral”?
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Anna O. Law

scalzi.com
The "AI" responses that Google gives about me and my work are consistently error-prone, which I know because I am me. If I know Google's "AI" responses give incorrect answers about things I know about, I can't trust it to give correct answers about things I don't know. So, no, I don't use it.
johngordon.bsky.social
John Gordon 🇨🇦🇩🇰 @johngordon.bsky.social · 13d
I’m surprised you don’t use ai answer engines in research you currently do with Google
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

magdalenaskipper.bsky.social
Jane Goodall challenged what it meant to be a scientist.

In this news story we look at three ways she changed science.

A loss for science, a loss for the community, a loss for everyone

🧪 #academicSky

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Jane Goodall’s legacy: three ways she changed science
The primatologist challenged what it meant to be a scientist.
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

melaniemitchell.bsky.social
In honor of the 75th anniversary of the Turing test, I'm re-upping my short essay, "The Turing Test and our shifting conceptions of intelligence".

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The Turing Test and our shifting conceptions of intelligence
“Can machines think?” So asked Alan Turing in his 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Turing quickly noted that, given the difficulty of defining thinking, the question is “too meaning...
www.science.org
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Nicole Dubilier, Shelly Lundberg , and 3 more

jayrosen.bsky.social
If you are following the story of The Pentagon's new policy, nicknamed, "you must check with us before you dream of doing any journalism," you may enjoy this update from @status.news
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Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian

References

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