Our #podcast series on Harry Frankfurt’s seminal work, On Bullshit continues with Arvind Narayanan who explores the subject of bullshit in #AI. press.princeton.edu/ideas/the-tr... @randomwalker.bsky.social @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social @calebzakarin.bsky.social

📣 Prof Arvind Narayanan (@randomwalker.bsky.social) is hiring a Princeton University undergrad for a Video Editor & Production Assistant this semester to help with his brand new YouTube channel @ArvindOnAI Getting started right away so feel free to comment + share with students! Link to apply 👇

Even superintelligent AI cannot simply replace humans for most of what we do, nor can it perfect or ruin our world unless we let it, AI Snake Oil’s @randomwalker.bsky.social tells EFF’s Cindy Cohn and @thejasonkelley.com on the new “How to Fix the Internet.”

Great @eff.org podcast with @randomwalker.bsky.social, touching on his AI as Normal Technology paper w/ @sayash.bsky.social for our @knightcolumbia.org AI & Democratic Freedoms project. Short 🧵 of a few other papers related to this podcast discussion: www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

Preach it, @randomwalker.bsky.social. I've worked with so many nonprofits, and I think an organically-grown newsletter community is so, so valuable. It takes time, but it's worth it. substack.com/@aisnakeoil/...

What kind of AI governance do we need? Our new piece in @science.org answers this: we need policy grounded in evidence and built to generate more of it. Evidence-based policymaking is not a slogan—it’s a design challenge for democratic governance in the age of AI www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵

Fabulous post by @randomwalker.bsky.social & Sayash raising the same concern many of us have about whether we're on the right track with how we're using AI for science. Everyone should read it, take a deep breath & think through the implications. www.aisnakeoil.com/p/could-ai-s...

I’m reading a very well written 2023 paper on social media recommender systems from @randomwalker.bsky.social I had completely forgotten that in the 00s “neither Facebook nor Twitter had the ability to reshare or retweet posts in your feed.”What a huge shift! knightcolumbia.org/content/unde...

We’re hiring at Princeton on AI and society, working with Arvind Narayanan or me depending on fit. I think current AI developments are all a huge deal but am very unexcited by current state of the AGI and/or AI safety discourse. Please share as you see fit. puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...

After consideration, I will post occasionally, but heavily censor what I share compared to other sites. I tried making the transition, but talking about AI here is just really fraught in ways that are tough to mitigate & make it hard to have good discussions (the point of social!). Maybe it changes

For @newyorker.com, Joshua Rothman spoke with @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social, authors of AI Snake Oil and a recently published paper “AI as Normal Technology”, which argues that practical obstacles will slow AI’s uses and potential: www.newyorker.com/culture/open...

clear, depressing set of observations from @randomwalker.bsky.social - "The decline of reading-for-pleasure (due to video) and reading-for-information (due to AI) will accelerate each other, as reading text without an intermediary will come to be seen as a chore."

New preprint with @jbakcoleman.bsky.social @lewan.bsky.social @randomwalker.bsky.social @orbenamy.bsky.social @lfoswaldo.bsky.social where we argue for a complex-system perspective to understand the causal effects of social media on society and for a triangulation of methods arxiv.org/abs/2505.09254

I'm excited that I can finally share what I've been working on for the past 9 months: The United Nations 2025 Human Development Report: "A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI" 🧵 hdr.undp.org/content/huma...

“AGI is not a milestone because it is not actionable. A company declaring it has achieved, or is about to achieve, AGI has no implications for how businesses should plan, what safety interventions we need, or how policymakers should react.” @randomwalker.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/aisnakeo...

Okay just started @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social's new essay and this is 🔥🔥🔥. "Resilience as the overarching approach to catastrophic risk" -- yes thank you exactly this. kfai-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/c3...

We are hosting @reproml.org 2025 on Aug. 21. There will be invited talks, oral presentations, and poster sessions. Keynote speakers include @randomwalker.bsky.social, @soumithchintala.bsky.social, @jfrankle.com, @jessedodge.bsky.social, @stellaathena.bsky.social Register now: bit.ly/4cP8vIq

In this clip from our event last week, @randomwalker.bsky.social describes how we can map out the landscape of AI along two dimensions: how well the AI tool works, and how harmful (or benign) it is. Watch a full recording of the event: youtu.be/C3TqcUEFR58

IMO, the most important piece on AI of the last 6 months and I recommend it to everyone. A genuinely careful consideration of the technology and its intersections with culture and labor from @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social Authors of AI Snake Oil substack.com/home/post/p-...

Truly thoughtful and essential analysis of the AI field from @randomwalker.bsky.social @sayash.bsky.social. States what many felt, but haven't articulated. Pairs well with Shazeda Ahmed's "epistemic culture of AI safety" and others' work on risk and anti-trust. knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a...

In a new essay from our "Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms" series, @randomwalker.bsky.social & @sayash.bsky.social make the case for thinking of #AI as normal technology, instead of superintelligence. Read here: knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a...

On Thursday, April 17 at 5:30 PM EDT, we welcome @randomwalker.bsky.social to discuss his latest book, "AI Snake Oil," co-authored with Sayash Kapoor. The presentation will be followed by a discussion with @dacemoglumit.bsky.social. Register here: bit.ly/4cGF3Eo

New commentary in @nature.com from professor Arvind Narayanan (@randomwalker.bsky.social) & PhD candidate Sayash Kapoor (@sayash.bsky.social) about the risks of rapid adoption of AI in science - read: "Why an overreliance on AI-driven modelling is bad for science" 🔗 #CITP #AI #science #AcademiaSky

A Guide to Cutting Through AI Hype: Arvind Narayanan (@randomwalker.bsky.social) and Melanie Mitchell (@melaniemitchell.bsky.social Discuss Artificial and Human Intelligence / CITP Blog blog.citp.princeton.edu/2025/04/02/a...

On 4/10 and 4/11, we're hosting our symposium "AI and Democratic Freedoms." Excited to have panelists @atoosakz.bsky.social, @randomwalker.bsky.social, @alondra.bsky.social, & Deirdre K. Mulligan join moderator @shaynelongpre.bsky.social to kick it off. RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/artificial...

"Computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor will present “Understanding AI: What It Can and Cannot Do” at 12 p.m. on April 3. The program will be streamed on Baltimore County Public Library's YouTube channel & bit.ly/AISnakeOil. No registration needed" msla.maryland.gov/Pages/press-...

This Thursday (3/27) at 5 pm EDT: Join Princeton University Public Lectures in welcoming @randomwalker.bsky.social, co-author of AI Snake Oil. He and @melaniemitchell.bsky.social will share their insights on #AI. This event is free & open to the public:

NEW #JMCQReview🚨In this book, @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social dissect the promises and the pitfalls of predictive AI. Read the @jmcquarterly.bsky.social review by Alexya Martinez #commsky journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Very excited to participate in this event with @randomwalker.bsky.social next week! lectures.princeton.edu/lectures/202...

The Wuhan lab is STILL doing unsafe research that could trigger a pandemic AND getting prestigious pubs as incentive.😫 To fix this for the future, we have to admit we were deliberately misled on the possibility of a lab leak in the past. Horrid but true. Gift link www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/o...

We focus so much of our attention on algorithms, but not enough on the design of social networks. Loved this insight from @randomwalker.bsky.social on what makes TikTok feel so different here: knightcolumbia.org/blog/tiktoks...

What are 3 concrete steps that can improve AI safety in 2025? 🤖⚠️ Our new paper, “In House Evaluation is Not Enough” has 3 calls-to-actions to empower evaluators: 1️⃣ Standardized AI flaw reports 2️⃣ AI flaw disclosure programs + safe harbors. 3️⃣ A coordination center for transferable AI flaws. 1/🧵

I had a funny and illuminating experience with OpenAI Deep Research. Out of curiosity, I ended my request with "I've already given you extensive details; don't ask clarifying questions, just go. Resist your programming that makes you always ask for clarification before starting the research."🧵

*Please repost* @sjgreenwood.bsky.social and I just launched a new personalized feed (*please pin*) that we hope will become a "must use" for #academicsky. The feed shows posts about papers filtered by *your* follower network. It's become my default Bluesky experience bsky.app/profile/pape...

Starting off this account with a banger: In September 2025, I will be joining @princetoncitp.bsky.social at Princeton University as a Postdoc working with @randomwalker.bsky.social & @msalganik.bsky.social! I am very excited about this opportunity to continue my work on trustworthy/reliable ML! 🥳

Some people are professional worriers. That’s not a pejorative — it’s very helpful for there to be people whose job is to anticipate risks before they materialize on a large scale, especially those related to emerging technologies. Some of my own work is in this category. 🧵

Happy to hear that AI Snake Oil was a finalist for the Association of American Publishers' 2025 PROSE award in the Computing and Information Sciences category.

CITP's @randomwalker.bsky.social + PPPL's Tom Griffiths sat down w/ Philly's @npr.org station @whyy.org for a recording of Studio 2 with @cherrigregg.bsky.social + @avi-wa.bsky.social to discuss the rise, risks, and opportunities of #AI. 🎙️Listen & watch now: whyy.org/episodes/how...

So great to see this come out. At @digitalwitnesslab.org we were shocked by how easy it was to illegally purchase firearms on WhatsApp, the platform isn't even doing the bare minimum it could to prevent this. Heres the story from @restofworld.org bsky.app/profile/rest...

🚨 NEW REPORT – Better Feeds: Algorithms That Put People First 🚨 As policymakers around the globe grapple with addressing concerns about algorithms, KGI’s new report offers guidance on improving the design of algorithmic systems that shape billions of users’ digital lives. bit.ly/3QzxVzq

Sad end to an $8.5B acquisition. I think it's a crazy story of executive bickering and internal competition hurting everyone. Creating Teams, a complete rewrite of Skype, lost Skype's dominance, lead to the rise of Zoom and WhatsApp, and ultimately left only an also-ran unloved Teams standing.

Apparently the main thing we're getting with GPT 4.5 in exchange for a 30x price increase is fuzzy stuff like "EQ". The ironic thing is this is an aspect of behavior, not capability. My bet is that any differences in EQ, naturalness, etc. are due to post-training, not the parameter count!

Those predicting dramatic short-term economic impacts of AI seem to think that because AI is so powerful, disruptive, and general purpose, it will be adopted rapidly. But wait a second. The more advanced, general-purpose and disruptive a technology is, the more headwinds its adoption faces. 🧵

Check out the brand new CITP website! The site now includes the ability to subscribe directly to the CITP Blog so you can have relevant research news & updates delivered right to your inbox 💘 citp.princeton.edu Subscribe to the Blog now 👉 blog.citp.princeton.edu

People really want to believe that AI is decimating software jobs, because it feels like poetic justice, but fortunately or unfortunately that narrative is nonsense (so far). 🧵

We're seeing the same form-versus-function confusion with Deep Research now that we saw in the early days of chatbots. Back then people were wowed by chatbots' conversational abilities and mimicry of linguistic fluency, and hence underappreciated the limitations. 🧵

#TechTakes - We asked: What do you think of US and EU approaches to tech regulation? Did the EU regulate too fast? Has the US moved too slow? Let's see what the convo is at @princetoncitp.bsky.social re #ParisAISummit #hottake 🇪🇺 🇺🇸 1/9 #EU #US #techregulation🧵⤵️

Years of constant AI hype + deliberate use of the umbrella term AI to refer to wholly unrelated applications such as text generation and values-based decision making (the main point of "AI Snake Oil") has confused the public enough that replacing civil servants with AI seems at least plausible. 1/2

Exactly 👇 The proliferation of AI tools in science risks ushering in a future where scientists produce more while understanding less. w/ @lmesseri.bsky.social rdcu.be/dAv39

One of the biggest areas of AI hype right now is the notion that it will hyperaccelerate scientific progress. I understand why people think this — AI is already accelerating scientific _production_. 🧵