Dr Abeba Birhane

@abeba

Founder & PI @aial.ie. Assistant Professor of AI, School of Computer Science & Statistics, @tcddublin.bsky.social AI accountability, AI audits & evaluation, critical data studies. Cognitive scientist by training. Ethiopian in Ireland. She/her

901 Following53,565 Followers4,754 Posts

Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and abeba.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· 10h

"A student’s essay on Macbeth has no value as a product. It’s what you learned in the reading and writing that created it – the swiftness and resilience and suppleness of thinking you built, along with the knowledge gained of a literary marvel, of something unsummarisable – that was the point"

Many students want to resist, but the temptation is great, and some start to feel they’re being penalised for their honesty. I tell the students I meet: imagine you’re an Olympic athlete. You set out to sprint the 3km across London, from Clapham to Balham. You know if you take the bus, it will be faster. But you also know that the point was never being in Clapham or Balham; they’re very similar: they both have a nice Pizza Express. It was the strength you built, the speed and knowledge of your body that you gained. A student’s essay on Macbeth has no value as a product. It’s what you learned in the reading and writing that created it – the swiftness and resilience and suppleness of thinking you built, along with the knowledge gained of a literary marvel, of something quicksilver and unsummarisable – that was the point. So you can’t collaborate with AI in the same way you can’t collaborate with a bus. And you cannot learn to think without a climbing frame of facts and ideas and texts to move around in.

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· 10h

"AI, we’re told, will make learning more efficient. But is that what we dream of for our kids – an efficient childhood? To write an efficient story, sing an efficient song?"

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· 2d

we made similar points about AI systems and humans as things that are different in kind 6 years ago and all of the points in our paper still stand Robot Rights?: Let's Talk about Human Welfare Instead dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Our starting point is not to deny robots ‘rights’, but to deny
that robots are the kinds of beings that could be granted or denied
rights. We suggest it makes no sense to conceive of robots as slaves,
since ‘slave’ falls in the category of being that robots aren’t. Hu-
man beings are such beings. We believe animals are such beings
(though a discussion of animals lies beyond the scope of this paper).
We take a post-Cartesian, phenomenological view in which being
human means having a lived embodied experience, which itself is
embedded in social practices. Technological artifacts form a crucial
part of this being, yet artifacts themselves are not that same kind
of being. The relation between human and technology is tightly
intertwined, but not symmetrical.

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· 2d

"One of Anthropic’s defining pieces of research appears in a paper entitled “On the Biology of a Large Language Model”. This is highly misleading: LLMs do not have any biology at all, because they are not alive. But in reading Anthropic’s paper one is invited quietly to forget this;.."

The field of machine learning frequently employs biological language to describe LLMs: “neurons” and “neural networks”, “training” and “pruning”. Generative AI systems, says Anthropic’s Olah, are grown more than they are built. One of Anthropic’s defining pieces of research appears in a paper entitled “On the Biology of a Large Language Model”. This is highly misleading: LLMs do not have any biology at all, because they are not alive. But in reading Anthropic’s paper one is invited quietly to forget this; the word “metaphor” does not appear in the article.

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· 5d

no matter who is backing it or how much money is behind it, the idea of a “post-agi society” is naive at best and at worst, intentionally ignorant of the backbone of AI: humans AI (AGI, whatever that is) is human through and through 1/

If we develop AGI, what happens next? What good stable states might we hope to reach, and what should we be doing now to prepare? This workshop brings together thinkers from machine learning, economics, political science, sociology, and more to answer an increasingly pressing question: what assumptions about civilization will AGI break, and how can we be ready to fix them?

This iteration of the workshop will focus in particular on the following themes:
Political economy

How can our political systems adapt to a world where humans are no longer necessary? What does the equilibrium look like? Are there equilibria which preserve non-competitive human values?
The role of AI

What roles might AIs take on in society? How will they think about themselves? What does it look like for AIs to be independent economic actors? What forces will shape their dispositions?
Cultural and moral change

Where will AI values and beliefs come from? What happens when humans aren't the only source of ideas? Are there convergent notions of "goodness", and what do they mean for digital beings?

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jul 12

Alfred Nobel established the Nobel Prize after wake up call: newspapers mistakenly published his obituary when his brother died & what he read as his legacy horrified him speaking ill (factually) of the dead is literally the most effective way to curb living racist & Nazi public figures/politicians

There is a well-known story about the origin of the Nobel Prize, although historians have been unable to verify it, and some dismiss the story as a myth.[26] In 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig supposedly caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. One French newspaper[which?] condemned him for his invention of military explosives—in many versions of the story, dynamite is quoted, although this was mainly used for civilian applications—and this is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death.[6] The obituary supposedly stated, Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead"),[6] and according to the myth went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."[27] Nobel read the obituary and was appalled at the idea that he would be remembered in this way. His decision to posthumously donate the majority of his wealth to found the Nobel Prize has been credited to him wanting to leave behind a better legacy.[28][6] However, it has been questioned whether or not the obituary in question actually existed.[28] An actual obituary (pictured) stated "A man who can only with the utmost difficulty be considered a benefactor of mankind has died yesterday at Cannes. It is Mr. Nobel, inventor of dynamite. Mr. Nobel was Swedish." It was published on the first page of the Figaro on the 15th of April 1888 and retracted the next day.

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jul 11

perpetual war is a business model for guys like Thiel www.ft.com/content/cb53...

Investors are pouring billions into defence technology start-ups as wars in Ukraine and the Gulf turn drones, autonomous vessels and battlefield AI into one of this year’s hottest venture capital bets.
Companies in the sector have raised $12.3bn from VC funds since the start of 2026, almost double the amount raised in the same period last year and more than the $9.95bn achieved in the whole of last year, according to data compiled for the Financial Times by PitchBook.
The surge comes as conflicts expose demand for next-generation weapons systems that are cheaper and faster to produce. However, with some funds willing to pay increasing multiples as they bet heightened government defence spending will endure, it has also raised concerns that parts of the market are overheating.

The Gulf conflict has also sharpened interest in maritime defence tech. UK start-up Kraken Technology, whose autonomous minehunting vessels have been picked by the Royal Navy for deployment in the Strait of Hormuz, is seeking to raise about $100mn at a roughly $1bn valuation, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company is working with advisers at PJT Partners on the process, the people said. Kraken and PJT declined to comment.

The boom is heavily concentrated in the US. American start-ups captured $11.4bn of the total — although Anduril Industries alone accounted for almost half of that.
The Silicon Valley-based company, known for its drones and surveillance towers, almost doubled its valuation to $61bn in a $5bn funding round last month, with backers including Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.
Other US start-ups to have raised capital include autonomous surface vessel specialist Saronic Technologies and aerial drone maker Shield AI.

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jul 8

a friend currently attending the ai for good conference sent this and I'm not sure how to feel lol

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 30

misinterpretation of laws a recurring tactic of Big AI read our paper: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Table 1. Taxonomy of capture mechanisms with brief descriptions. The highlighted concepts denote five broad, high-level
categories, each further comprising a set of detailed mechanism categories and descriptions.

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 30

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 28

we put forward a list of recommendations including for scientific publication and conference venues including #FAccT to develop mechanisms requiring declaration of conflict of interest from Big AI #FAccT2026

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 28

we analyse 100 media articles clustered around global significant events (the UK, Korea and French AI Summits) and find both regulatory and narrative capture across the board #FAccT2026

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 28

we develop a taxonomy of 27 mechanisms used to capture rule making and public disclosure #FAccT2026

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 28

@storitu.org presents the paper now starting with our definition of "Big AI" #FAccT2026

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 27

Suchman's excellent keynote zooms in into modern warfare & the role of AI in the Gaza genocide #FAccT2026 "The most consequential decision are made by systems that cannot explain themselves, supplied by companies that answer to no-one, in conflicts that generate no accountability and no reckoning"

"The most consequential decision are made by systems that cannot explain themselves, supplied by companies that answer to no-one, in conflicts that generate no accountability and no reckoning"

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 27

"The us military budget exceeds the next 9 countries combined" Lucy Suchman #FAccT2026

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 27

In her keynote, Lucy Suchman reminds us that raw data is an oxymoron and a bad idea. #FAccT2026

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 26

"Ideas such as UBI, the American sovereign wealth fund & other social welfare distribution systems associated with AGI presume that knowledge of human future falls on the shoulders of few technocarats rather than ideas that need to be put forward for democratic deliberation" Shazeda Ahmed #FAccT2026

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 26

"AGI, the automate everything machine, is a business pitch that is extremely lucrative to companies like anthropic" @bcmerchant.bsky.social in a very humorous craft session at #FAccT2026

a presentation slide. It reads "agi and the new luddism" image of Brian Merchant on the corner

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 26

Dick Blankvoort presents work that looks into model providers obligation to provide a public summary of training data for GPAI models under the EU AI Act: tldr small open source model providers are following rules while there's no information to be found on large providers such as openai #FAccT2026

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 26

Mcllwain now tells the story of Black women early computer visionaries. he describes Julia Beale Williams imaginary 1980s piece, "Computer Magic" and warns "but you won't find her work on the Internet" #FAccT2026

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 26

Charlton McIlwain makes such a poignant point at #FAccT2026: what has the decades of work that has measured, documented, & evaluated the failure and bias of AI systems done? we have known the negative impact for decades yet very little has changed

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 18

good morning #liffey

The river liffey, Dublin. Dramatic morning clouds, calm waters showing reflection of buildings from both sides of the river

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 17

dead funny but also painfully accurate

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 13

also, c'mon...

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 12

Most kids overestimate what AI can do, even those who think they know a lot about how it works. 7/

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 12

One in six kids who have used AI chatbots say an AI has shown or said something they felt “wasn’t OK or wasn’t meant for someone their age”—and most never told a trusted adult about it. 6/

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 12

Among kids who have used AI to discuss their feelings or personal problems (37% of kids who use AI), one in four (25%) say they sometimes feel AI understands them better than most people do. 5/

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 12

Kids who report feeling lonelier tend to use AI more frequently & use AI more often for social & emotional support half of kids who use/interact with AI daily (54%) or weekly (47%), & 44% of monthly AI users, say they feel lonely at least some of the time, compared to 33% who use AI < once a month

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba· Jun 12

Among kids who use AI for homework help (85%), 16% say they have difficulty starting or completing their homework when they cannot use AI, and 28% of kids who use AI for homework on a daily basis say it is hard when they cannot use it 3/