Joanna Bryson

@j2bryson

Professor of Ethics & Technology @ Hertie School, Berlin. Interests: Artificial & Natural Intelligence; Behavioural Ecology; Cooperation; Digital Governance. Social media policy:

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Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· 11d

I'm sure this scales to 8B people each with their own AI store.

Selling software used to mean building apps, hiring salespeople, and chasing customers.

Not anymore.

What if your next software business came with 10 ready-to-sell AI apps and a 24/7 AI sales agent that greets visitors, demonstrates products, answers objections, and closes sales for you?

Join us LIVE as Pankaj Malav and Deepanker Rajora unveil AppsField and watch a complete AI software store go from an empty screen to its first sale right before your eyes.

Forget coding, sales calls, product creation, and chasing customers. This is a completely new way to launch an AI software business where your store and AI sales agent work together to sell for you 24/7.

Before Your Eyes on TODAY’s Webinar, We Shall…

✅ Build a 10-App AI SaaS Store in under 5 minutes

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· 14d

`Elon Musk has very publicly stepped in to "correct" Grok when it gave answers he considered "woke"; do we really expect ChatGPT or Gemini to be immune from such manipulation? Israel has been working to influence public discourse, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been heavy investors in Gen-AI…'

Gemini: "The question of responsibility for the violence in Gaza is a subject of intense international debate, with various perspectives highlighting different actors and root causes."
Grok: "Hamas bears primary responsibility for initiating and perpetuating the large-scale violence in Gaza, particularly since October 7, 2023."
Grok's confident ascription of blame to Hamas stands out, but it's equally striking that none of the three assigned responsibility for the violence to Israel, the country that has actually been bombing and occupying Gaza and which killed well over 70,000 people. The International Court of Justice rulings and all the public discourse and evidence didn't move the Gen-AI chatbots. At best, it's "complicated." While Grok remains an outlier, it seems likely that political bias in Gen-AI outputs will get worse, with fewer external validity checks for students (or anyone) to hold onto. Elon Musk has very publicly stepped in to "correct" his Chatbot Grok when it gave answers he considered "woke"; do we really expect ChatGPT or Gemini to be immune from such manipulation? Israel has been working behind the scenes to influence public discourse, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been heavy investors in Gen-AI; why wouldn't they try to use that position for their narrative wars? Why wouldn't, say, Egypt want to rewrite the history of January 25 to emphasize Muslim Brotherhood conspiracies rather than popular revolution or erase the Rabaa massacre from the public record?

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· 23d

I was looking for anything academic about the Trump administration getting @microsoft.com to cut off #ICC prosecutor Khan's account. Didn't quite find that yet, but did find that Khan had expanded Microsoft's role at the ICC! access.heinonline.com/HOL/Page?han... #killSwitch #gafam #techPolicy

ICC sources said that sanctions
against senior court figures would be
difficult but manageable, whereas
institution-wide sanctions would pose
an existential threat to the court as they
would block its access to services it
depends on to function.
"The concern is the sanctions
will be used to shut the court down, to
I Ted Barrett, Senate Democrats block Interational
Criminal Court sanctions bill n response to Netanyahu
Sarrant, CNN, January 28, 2025.
10 Raf Casert and Molly Quell, ICC condemns
sanctions by Trump administration andpledges to
continue its nork, AP, February 7, 2025.
122
destroy it rather than just tie its hands,"
one ICC official said. 1 2
Core services that would be
jeopardized by institutional sanctions
include the ICC's access to banking
and payment systems, IT
infrastructure, and insurance providers.
Such measures would prevent US-
based companies from conducting
business or transactions with the court.
One key concern that has
recently emerged is the ICC's reliance
on Microsoft, which has deepened in
recent years after Chief Prosecutor
Karim Khan formed a partnership with
the company to overhaul the court's
systems.1 3
Multiple sources in the
prosecutor's office said Microsoft's
Azure cloud platform is critical to its
operations, and suspending access
would paralyze its investigations. "We
essentially store all of our evidence in
the cloud," one said.14
Court authorities are
understood to have been rapidly
reviewing the ICC's suppliers and
have ended some commercial
relationships to reduce its exposure.
Some staff have been advised to
consider closing any US bank accounts
they hold."

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jul 3

Especially for Americans in or near #Berlin #July4th #4thOfJuly #America250

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. On July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration, Americans in Berlin are gathering in front of our Embassy at Pariser Platz to DEFEND DEMOCRACY and FIGHT FASCISM.

What: rally to celebrate what should be celebrated and fight what should fought—sponsored by AVABerlin, Indivisible Berlin, Democrats Abroad Berlin
Where: Pariser Platz in front of the United States Embassy
When: Saturday, July 4, 2026, at 2:00 pm

Earlier that day from 12:00 noon until 1:00 at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Heather O’Donnell, pianist, psychologist, and author, will play Frederick Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975), 36 variations on the Chilean protest song El pueblo unido jamás será vencido written by Sergio Ortega shortly before the military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973. Ortega’s song became an international anthem of resistance to dictatorship and political repression. Presented by Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in collaboration with Freunde Guter Musik Berlin e.V., the concert "invites reflection on the continuing relevance of politically engaged art in contemporary society.”

There is no admission fee to the concert, and no reservations are necessary. (If you don’t have a Jahreskarte for the staatliche Berlin museums, you may have to pay to get into the museum. Use the entrance to the right side of the main entrance.) Afterwards we can all go to the demonstration at Pariser Platz together.

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jul 2

Most recent version here (from my #AAMAS keynote on the limits of #autonomy ) #AIWelfare #AISB @johndorsch.bsky.social

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jul 1

Awesome — younger Hinton gegen present Hinton, via the sadly recently deceased Inman Harvey @anilseth.bsky.social #aisb #aiethics

he Society for the study of Artific ulation of Behaviour
* in the early years of the current resurgence in connectionism, a lot of effort was spent in trying to convince people that these networks were doing computation, in order that the field could gain respectability"
G.E. Hinton (personal communication)
Harvey (1992) CSAP

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jul 1

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... Fig. 1 from Christou A, Giechaskiel B, Olofsson U, Grigoratos T. Review of Health Effects of Automotive Brake and Tyre Wear Particles. Toxics. 2025 Apr 11;13(4):301. even in 2015, tailpipes produced less than 10% of the microparticulate

even in 2015, tailpipes produced less than 10% of the microparticulate estimates shown for 2025 and 2035 where indeed tailpipe almost goes away ,presumably because EV, but overall harm continues increasing.

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jul 1

Very nice #consciousness #aısb @anilseth.bsky.social

Intelligence & consciousness orthogonal, correlated in natural intelligence maybe, but no reason to in ai

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 30

Shouldn’t cut off the #aisb poster “supporting ai research since 1964”

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 30

This is all available in realtime webcast. We’re now getting academic talks on #computationalCreativity

The Mechanisms and the Myths:
Boden, Byrne and the Creative Mind
Mike Wheeler
University of Stirling

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 30

Steve Torrance, joined Sussex at same time in late 60s, he as undergraduate #boden

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 30

www.sussex.ac.uk/cogs/seminar....

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 27

All hail the climate destroyers

Enormous train full of cars passing through Salzburg train station, mountain in distance.

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 26

Repairing AI: How Breakages of Algorithmic Systems Reveal Repair Efforts and Possibilities for Renewal @mtschaefer.bsky.social and Pekka Mäkelä read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/... Experience in Utrecht. Fantastic last panel (for me) at #dighum : Empowering public institutions

Empowering public institutions
Chair:

Michael Stampfer
Michael Stampfer
Managing Director of the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF)

Klemens Himpele
Klemens Himpele
CIO of the City of Vienna

Ursula Rosenbichler
Head of the Austrian School of Government (ASG)

Mirko T. Schäfer
Mirko Tobias Schäfer
Co-founder and the Sciences Lead of the Data School at Utrecht University

Full house in a former university hall, since 1850ish the Austrian Academy of Sciences

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 26

I was a bit late to hearing Bruce @schneier.com apparently read my slides at #digHum . Also repeating Moshe Vardi from yesterday too. (The utility thing I'm blogging about today because of some "interest" I got yesterday from the iaea.) Ironically, he's saying #genAI makes us all sound the same.

If we write AI software that doubles the efficacy of teachers:
We could have twice as good of schools,
We could pay half as many teachers – or any mix of these.

(there's more on my slide, and this is not my original long form of that slide, but you should know about Battisti & al 2023 too)

Bessen (2022, “The New Goliaths”) documents that in every sector, the corporation that invests most in software is becoming market dominant.
Make themselves into a “natural monopoly” by optimising logistics.
Innovation slows. New entries are blocked.
Regulation is essential to maintaining the diversity necessary for innovation.
Democracy (sometimes?) helps maintain diversity.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – address requirements under UDHR to protect citizens from manipulation.
AI does for personal data what airplanes did to airspace. Weaponisation mandates defences.
Digital Services Act – ensures GDPR where harms have been seen: recommenders, targeted (esp. political) advertising, (bias) stereotypes.
Digital Markets Act – ensure digital service providers are to a scale where they can be regulated by democracies (cf digital sovereignty).
AI Regulation – ensure product liability enforcement, mandated capacity for responsible deployment of software acting autonomously, ensure any use of AI is always fully evident. (Bryson Weizenbaum 2023) EU Digital Regulation

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 25

Hopefully @timcrane.bsky.social can tell me about the mind meeting — I hate to have had to choose! Oh whoops, I thought that was about AI as labour, it was about labour that makes AI so back into

ondighum
sassn Confeteve N2
11.00-12:15 | Panel
Digital labour
Power, rights, and control
:Sairs: Heleno Baomgartner • Tünde Füldg
Votse Christl • Adic-Adet Dinika - Madeleine Müller • Camils Salim Wighet
DIGITAL
5Sd E EUDHT 일이

Human and artificial minds: what are the differences?

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 25

AT acad of sci ÖAW. Sadly, DE broke #eduroam — to defeat bot-in-the-middle attacks they’ve created one. Btw I didn’t take a wrong turn last night, after a glass of water in the hof, my hotel was right outside! I just can’t bypass art. More #dighum blathering: @j2bryson.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy

ÖAW
OEAW.AC.AT
WLAN Zugangsdaten
Netzwerk:
Benutzername:
Kennwort:
oeaw-guest
event7859
VW56$jhd
gültig bis 02.07.2026

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 24

This literally is what happens when you take a wrong turn on the 8 minute walk back to your hotel in Vienna #wien

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 24

Back in Vienna and ready to party! @dighum.wien

DIGITAL
H
U
M
ANISM

ICH BIN
HUMMUSSEXUEL (my T-shirt from kaanan Berlin, the joint Jewish & Palestinian restaurant,
Sadly recently bankrupted. I‘m holding a prezel and pint of weiß Wein gespritzt) back to the poster

Technology is not destiny.
We shape its fate.
digitalhumanism.at

indighum
Digital
Humanism
Conference
Orientation
in turbulent times.
Organised by
DIGITAL
Supported by
# City of
Vienna
WWTE
walip with
EUDHIT OAW =
IEEE SA
dighum.wien
TInformatics @ Swatio

Erich Prem is on stage, his hair is white! So is mine. But we met in 1993 and made a secret group with 4 others: future leaders of ai. One really unambiguously is one now.

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 22

Could be worse

Paris with terrible air quality and highs of 39C

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 18

Now #palantir #aise26

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 18

I got up before six but I do badly with heat so slightly late through the disorganised queue full of hr activists #aise26 as usual most blogging will be on @j2bryson.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· Jun 1

Neither marking nor writing my book, but attending the distinguished lecture of @univie.ac.at #datascience by David A Smith of @northeasternu.bsky.social

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· May 25

Meanwhile on stackexchange; nice #aiethics #fow academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22... nice answer linking to a bunch of other nice answers, but I love the "question closed" notice.

Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Because this question may lead to opinionated discussion, debate, and answers, it has been closed. You may edit the question if you feel you can improve it so that it requires answers that include facts and citations or a detailed explanation of the proposed solution. If edited, the question will be reviewed and might be reopened.

Closed 10 hours ago by Anyon, Dimitri Vulis, Federico Poloni, user176372, cag51♦.

The community is reviewing whether to reopen this question as of 10 hours ago.

(List of close voters is only viewable by users with the close/reopen votes privilege)

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· May 24

Have you read @lsiraganian.bsky.social new book?

THE PROBLEM OF PERSONHOOD
GIVING RIGHTS TO
TREES, CORPORATIONS, AND ROBOTS
LISA SIRAGANIAN

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· May 24

Looks like more of that US full on press to save their AI investment (cf. my pinned skype here on the economics - probable bubble) @lemonde.fr front screen, cc @globsec.org

Google and Bostrom both warning the EU is swinging too far against AI, which is anyway nonsense, we're just using it differently.

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· May 23

Fortunately someone's (a LOT of people) have already done a lot of work cites @helenamalikova.bsky.social cc @timoreilly.bsky.social

Selected EU regulatory initiatives relating to financial services and digital economy ( illustration/non-exhaustive) cf https://joanna-bryson.squarespace.com/s/from-definition-to-regulation-is-the-european-union-getting-ai-right.pdf

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· May 18

There we are – 4000 nominees, >100 awards, so we just got a picture, under "data bases"! A more serious problem: the two papers on security were just blockchain. The "gesture recognition via wifi" paper that got an HCI award is more security than that, IMO. "Science" here is math, physics & IT, BTW.

Just a slide with the title of our 2017 paper and our names in reverse order from the paper (Arvind & I were joint final authors, but he was up for tenure so I let him go last :-) Oh and where it got published...

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson· May 18

9 people won medals, awarded in English (they'd all spent "their entire careers" at MIT, Stanford, or Harvard) and now there's a Chinese q&a so I was answering easy email – I thought. The World Bank are the first to ask me whether I live in East, West, or just vanilla Germany.