Six problems with talking about "ethical" or "responsible" AI use
moniquejmorrow · x · 2026-09-21
Emily M. Bender and Decca Muldowney dissect the untenable middle ground of acknowledging AI harms while defending its "responsible" use.
- Defensiveness: tech criticism gets misread as moral accusation of users; the critique actually targets systems, companies, and governments in their thrall.
- Righteousness: real unmet needs are invoked to justify AI solutions, but genuine problems don't make the solutions effective or worth their costs ("disability dongles").
They propose asking what's actually sold under the "AI" label—OCR and generative chatbots are different technologies, and conflating them lets marketing frame the debate.
Related event: Emily Bender critiques the untenable middle ground of responsible AI use(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Citizens Advice urges 'right to talk to a human' as half of users find service chatbots unhelpful — nordicinst · 2026-09-22
- Every major AI company is converging on the same personal agent stack, with little differentiation — signulll · 2026-09-22
- NYT Essay: AI Slopware Is Everywhere Now — and Nobody Is Using It — round · 2026-09-22
- What happens to Amazon's ad business when AI agents do the comparison shopping? — firstadopter · 2026-09-22
- Dev's Reversal Take: Tickets Will Use Agents to Find Buyers, Not the Other Way — cocktailpeanut · 2026-09-22
- Vacuum tubes weren't built by people trying to make computers — generativist · 2026-09-22