Gebru & Bender: don't be fooled by this summer of AI hype (MIT Tech Review)
marigo · x · 2026-09-23
Timnit Gebru and Emily Bender publish an opinion piece in MIT Technology Review dismantling the past few months' breathless AI "breakthrough" narratives:
- Vulnerability-hunting myth: In late April Anthropic claimed Claude Mythos beats most security experts at finding software vulnerabilities; this was followed by the OpenAI–Hugging Face hacking incident, after which Anthropic (proudly) and Meta (reluctantly) disclosed similar incidents with their own models.
- Back-to-back math breakthroughs: Anthropic claimed one of its models made a mathematical breakthrough; OpenAI promptly claimed one of its own.
- Apolocalyptic departure: Anthropic engineer Jacob Coxon went viral announcing his exit, saying the company and OpenAI are "racing straight towards self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."
The authors argue the pattern is consistent: massive corporate fanfare (hacking incidents repackaged as mea culphas) plus uncritical press coverage that repeats anthropomorphizing framings designed to portray software as incipient AGI. Their question: civilization-changing breakthroughs, or marketing?
Related event: Gebru and Bender Slam This Summer's AI Breakthroughs as Marketing Hype(3 posts)→
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