[Lingtyp] Future of AI, Simulating Reality...

Fri Aug 8 13:12:06 UTC 2025

Dear Stela,

LLMs ("asked Google") are not a suitable technology for information access.
For more on this:

Shah, Chirag and Emily M. Bender. 2024. Envisioning Information Access
Systems: What Makes for Good Tools and a Healthy Web?
<https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649468>. *ACM Transactions on the Web*
 18(3):1-24.
Shah, Chirag and Emily M. Bender. 2022. Situating Search
<https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3498366.3505816>. *Proceedings of the 2022
ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR
’22)*. [Video
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY1GHbU_FYs&list=PLn0nrSd4xjjY3E1qxXpWDoF7q-Q3d6g_A&index=17>
]
All-knowing machines are a fantasy Beware the human-sounding ChatGPT
<https://iai.tv/articles/all-knowing-machines-are-a-fantasy-auid-2334>,
Emily M. Bender and Chirag Shah. *IAI News* December 13, 2022.

And a quick summary here:
https://buttondown.com/maiht3k/archive/information-literacy-and-chatbots-as-search/

I don't see Hassabis as a "danger" to linguists. I do see it as problematic
to lift up people who neither know nor care about how language works as
sources of wisdom for our field.

As for Fridman -- his podcast is horrible because of who he gives his
platform to.

Emily

On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 6:01 AM Stela MANOVA <manova.stela at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Emily, Based on your reaction and the interdisciplinary nature of
> Hassabis’ research, I asked Google: Has anybody in physics, chemistry, or
> biology accused Demis Hassabis of teaching them how to conduct research in
> their fields? Here’s
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>
> Dear Emily,
>
> Based on your reaction and the interdisciplinary nature of Hassabis’
> research, I asked Google: Has anybody in physics, chemistry, or biology
> accused Demis Hassabis of teaching them how to conduct research in their
> fields?
>
> Here’s the AI Overview answer:
>
> “No, there have been no public accusations or reports of Demis Hassabis
> teaching individuals how to conduct research in physics, chemistry, or
> biology. While he is a prominent figure in AI and his company DeepMind has
> made significant contributions to fields like protein structure prediction
> (a topic within chemistry), there’s no indication that he has been accused
> of improperly influencing or instructing researchers in those areas.”
>
> I’d be interested to hear why you see Hassabis as a potential danger to
> linguists.
>
> As for Alexei (Lex) Fridman — born behind the Iron Curtain, he has managed
> to build a successful career in the US. He’s not my favorite interviewer,
> but I listen to his podcast from time to time. This is my way of supporting
> him, because I’m aware of how hard life can be in Western Europe and the US
> for people of his background.
>
> Best,
>
> Stela
>
>
> On 07.08.2025, at 15:25, Emily M. Bender <ebender at uw.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> I would hope that few on the lingtyp mailing list would fall for the "AI
> hype" going around, let alone the idea that someone as deep in the sauce of
> "AGI" mania as Hassabis would have anything insightful to tell us about how
> language works. Also, in case you're not familiar, Lex Fridman's podcast is
> an absolute cesspool.
>
> Emily
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 1:12 AM Stela MANOVA via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>> I would like to draw your attention to an interview with Demis Hassabis, CEO
>> of Google DeepMind and recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
>> The interview is featured on Lex Fridman’s podcast and is titled “Future
>> of AI, Simulating Reality, Physics and Video Games”, available here:
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HzgcbRXUK8&t=860s
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HzgcbRXUK8&t=860s__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!iHdE8g7J-P8Yd_hBcvQ5UAPPihBQxEJVsgU1qvmrjEw8OZWPAn0RrlY4qokR0GuqMziqVW-_eUUfe44BLb-faxIeprr-hNp_TA$>
>> .
>>
>> Although the conversation does not focus specifically on language, it
>> offers valuable insights into large language models (LLMs), particularly
>> how they can model language without possessing linguistic
>> competence—relying instead on patterns derived from observation.
>>
>> Notably, many computer scientists consider LLMs to represent the first
>> and most accessible step toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
>> Best regards,
>> Stela Manova, PI Gauss:AI Global
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!iHdE8g7J-P8Yd_hBcvQ5UAPPihBQxEJVsgU1qvmrjEw8OZWPAn0RrlY4qokR0GuqMziqVW-_eUUfe44BLb-faxIeprpE1yLxsw$
>>
>
>
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