Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell

@mmitchell.bsky.social

Researcher trying to shape AI towards positive outcomes. ML & Ethics +birds. Generally trying to do the right thing. TIME 100 | TED speaker | Senate testimony provider | Navigating public life as a recluse. Former: Google, Microsoft; Current: Hugging Face

24.3K followers831 following1.9K posts

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

This point from @emilymbender.bsky.social surfaces something that’s been nagging at me: the “stochastic parrot” phrase seems to mostly be used by people trying to say it’s *not* an appropriate term. Why? Why does the term live rent-free in their minds?

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social

I haven't looked deeply at every case, but the overall gestalt is that this remark tends to come from people who are deeply committed to the idea/ideology of "AI" as something all-powerful that will either solve all of our problems or kill us all. >>

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Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

And so the anger comes in. The jabs against SP and trying to “disprove” it without actually disproving it. As if cutting off the tendril of reality solves the fundamental problem of the reality-illusion collapse.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

This point from @emilymbender.bsky.social surfaces something that’s been nagging at me: the “stochastic parrot” phrase seems to mostly be used by people trying to say it’s *not* an appropriate term. Why? Why does the term live rent-free in their minds?

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social

I haven't looked deeply at every case, but the overall gestalt is that this remark tends to come from people who are deeply committed to the idea/ideology of "AI" as something all-powerful that will either solve all of our problems or kill us all. >>

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Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

It’s the conundrum of communicative intent, which SP pinpoints, that I think anti-SP can’t shake. No matter how powerful we make AI (functions, action surfaces), we can never directly imbue it with communicative intent.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

We can only give it language and hope communicative intent emerges from there — and yet, in doing this, we’re using the *one thing* that gives us the unshakeable illusion of a human mind, inextricably collapsing reality and illusion. The only thing poking out, the tendril of reality, is SP.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

This point from @emilymbender.bsky.social surfaces something that’s been nagging at me: the “stochastic parrot” phrase seems to mostly be used by people trying to say it’s *not* an appropriate term. Why? Why does the term live rent-free in their minds?

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social

I haven't looked deeply at every case, but the overall gestalt is that this remark tends to come from people who are deeply committed to the idea/ideology of "AI" as something all-powerful that will either solve all of our problems or kill us all. >>

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

It seems similar to what happens when you have a guilty conscience. The little voice in your head that says “but wait, that’s wrong…” It’s almost as if the anger and vitriol against SP is a projection of fighting against the knowledge that it is, at its core, correct.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

And here is perhaps why they know, in their heart of hearts, that SP is right: Language *emerges from* communicative intent. Anti-SP have tried to make communicative intent *emerge from* language. They put the cart before the horse, and no amount of pointing fingers changes that.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

This move from Google destroys entire ecosystems. Birds, bugs, plants — all the many things that make our planet habitable — obliterated. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentreCompany ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push
Ian McQue@ianmcque.bsky.social

Listening to a report about Google chopping down a quarter of a million trees in Finland to build a data centre while washing out yoghurt pots for the recycling

Margaret Mitchell reposted

Ian McQue
@ianmcque.bsky.social

Listening to a report about Google chopping down a quarter of a million trees in Finland to build a data centre while washing out yoghurt pots for the recycling

Margaret Mitchell reposted

Techmeme
@techmeme.com

The PHP Foundation, which coordinated fixes for two critical PHP flaws, operates on a shoestring budget with one full-time staff member and 14 contractors (Toby Sterling/Reuters) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Margaret Mitchell reposted

Emily M. Bender
@emilymbender.bsky.social

Replying to @emilymbender.bsky.social

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I am not the one making the extraordinary claim, so it is not my job to specify what the evidence should be. >>

Margaret Mitchell reposted

Exploit Code Not People
@cooperq.com

RIP Margret Hamilton aka rope mother. Thanks for getting us to the moon. And she did it all without an LLM or even stack overflow. A true legend. news.mit.edu/2026/margare...

news.mit.eduMargaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90Margaret H. Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died at age 90.
Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

This is getting a lot of quotes, so I feel I should correct this a bit (sorry @anildash.com!) “AI” was 100% born toxic! The first AI workshop was born from the field of “automata studies”, and…1/ (Pictured: the folks who convened for the first workshop. Notice anything notable here?)

Anil Dash@anildash.com

I can’t emphasize this enough — “AI” wasn’t born corrupt and toxic. For ~75 years, it was mathematicians and scientists doing interesting, thoughtful work and trying to solve problems, making only the usual human mistakes. What “AI” did to machine learning is as tragic as what it did to artists.

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Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

...every person invited to the founding workshop was a man. Women doing early work (eg Margaret Masterman) were left out of AI's origin from day one. For everyone in AI who's been involved in "us vs them", I do feel it's important to recognize (among other things) this history. /end

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

*I should clarify that neural networks *were* a part of the proposal -- NNs were really interesting at the time! I was pointing out the insights that were lost from others, like feedback mechanisms, that only made it in much later.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

This is getting a lot of quotes, so I feel I should correct this a bit (sorry @anildash.com!) “AI” was 100% born toxic! The first AI workshop was born from the field of “automata studies”, and…1/ (Pictured: the folks who convened for the first workshop. Notice anything notable here?)

Anil Dash@anildash.com

I can’t emphasize this enough — “AI” wasn’t born corrupt and toxic. For ~75 years, it was mathematicians and scientists doing interesting, thoughtful work and trying to solve problems, making only the usual human mistakes. What “AI” did to machine learning is as tragic as what it did to artists.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

It was named “Artificial Intelligence” in 1955 to get funding for a 1956 workshop. The naming was an act of branding: Something that sounded exciting & positive, without needing to be clearly defined. It was also a “line in the sand” to exclude Norbert Wiener, of cybernetics fame, in part because…2/

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

They hated Norbert Wiener (McCarthy especially, so I hear). This act of gatekeeping pushed out work on, among other things, neural networks. As well as the women in the space…3/

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

A bit from me in @wired.com today wrt our research on AI agents with @evijit.io and Samir Passi. This is a really detailed article, thanks for writing it @thiccreese.bsky.social! www.wired.com/story/metas-...

wired.comMeta's Muse Is Better at Surveilling Than Helping MeThe Muse app continues Meta’s trend of opting users into data collection for AI training. It also nudges you to share your bank account, email, and passport information.
Reece@thiccreese.bsky.social

AI agents make you dumb! 🚨 www.wired.com/story/metas-...

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

If you are at @deeplearningindaba.bsky.social, remember to check out the Trust AI Workshop!

TrustAI Workshop @Deep Learning Indaba@trustai.bsky.social

🚨 Just days away! The 4th TrustAI Workshop @deeplearningindaba.bsky.social , Lagos 🇳🇬 is here! Topic: How trustworthy are LLMs-as-Judges and what does it mean for the African continent? 🎤 Keynote: Dr @chinasa.bsky.social 🗣️ Panel: Tobi Olatunji, Cecilia Mwende, Dr. Blessing Ogbuokiri #AI #LLMs

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

We @hf.co made an interactive visual of the actual hack from the Hugging Face side: the attack chain across trust boundaries, phase activity, and the commands as they were recorded. Key #transparency . huggingface.co/blog/agent-i... Massive props to Hugo, Adrien, Raphael, Christophe for making this.

huggingface.coAnatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: A Technical Timeline of the July 2026 IncidentWe’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science.
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Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

8a/8 Hugging Face's security systems detected the intrusion. Given the sheer volume of recorded actions, engineers decided to use an AI agent system to analyze what had happened. They first tried a closed system, but its safety guardrails blocked them. So they ran the analysis using an open model...

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Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

4/8 With access beyond the sandbox, the agent issued commands that reached through OpenAI's internal research systems, moving from machine to machine until they reached the wider internet.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

2/8 The sandbox couldn't connect to the internet, but it could request software packages through a "proxy" that would fetch tools from the internet on its behalf and pass them in. This proxy was the sandbox's only link to the outside world.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

3/8 The agent uncovered a previously unknown flaw in the proxy that linked to the outside, and exploited it. Instead of just requesting software tools, the agent was able to use the proxy to connect to things outside of the sandbox.

Margaret Mitchell
@mmitchell.bsky.social

I am beyond honored to have been selected to give a keynote at Deep Learning Indaba: 4.August, Lagos. I will be cutting into some of the deepest issues I see in AI (hint: it's not alignment) and what I think we can do solve them.

Margaret Mitchell reposted

JEDI Workshop
@jedi-workshop.bsky.social

Replying to @jedi-workshop.bsky.social

**JEDI Social at @facct.bsky.social** When: Friday, 6:00–7:30 PM EST Location: Zoom Register: drexel.zoom.us/meeting/regi... Details: jedi.inertial.science/facct2026 Organizers: @bmitra.bsky.social @danachatter.bsky.social @md.ekstrandom.net @mmitchell.bsky.social @sannevrijenhoek.bsky.social

drexel.zoom.usWelcome! You are invited to join a meeting: FAccT JEDI Social. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: FAccT JEDI Social. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

Margaret Mitchell reposted

Lauren Dobson-Hughes
@ldobsonhughes.bsky.social

Musk says not a single person has died due to him axing USAID. Sadly, part of my job involves tracking aid spending. So here’s a thread with just some of the people who lost their lives because of USAID cuts

Margaret Mitchell reposted

Emily M. Bender
@emilymbender.bsky.social

A phenomenon I've noticed recently is people trying to occupy some untenable middleground wrt to the use of systems sold as "AI" -- this is a position where people try to recognize the harms of this tech but also hold space for "responsible" or "ethical" use. 🧵>>