Emily Bender on AI
3 quotes from Emily Bender on the wall, 2023 to 2025, newest first. Each one is verbatim and links to where it was said. Sources include Science, Fair Observer, ETBrandEquity.com.
- 2025
What companies mean when they say AI is venture capitalists, please give us money
Emily Bender, computational linguist and author of The AI Con, commenting on the term AI in National Geographic, December 2025.
What it refers to
The debate over whether the term AI describes a coherent technology or is tech industry hype.
Other voices
- I don't think AGI should be turned into a marketing term for commercial gainDemis HassabisBuilder29 January 2026
- It's always two years away from being two years awayJeffrey Ding30 January 2026
- Vendor financing dressed up as venture capitalGeorge Noble27 February 2026
- It's all over now, baby blueGary MarcusResearcher26 December 2025
- Potentially the largest theft in human historyZvi MowshowitzWriter31 October 2025
Even the best systems available today lack anything that could be called intelligence
Linguist Emily Bender, interviewed by the Financial Times in June 2025, critiquing claims about AI capabilities.
Other voices
- Synthetic text extrusion machinesEmily Bender and Alex HannaResearcher17 August 2025
- Today's AI is just automation, nothing moreErik J. LarsonWriter4 September 2025
- They live in the land of correlations between images and text, not in the land of ideasGary MarcusResearcher31 August 2025
- Large language models are about mimicking peopleRichard SuttonResearcher26 September 2025
Fair ObserverOutside the Box: AI Should be Short for “Associated Intelligence”
- 2023
Emily Bender, co-author of a paper cited in Elon Musk's 2023 open letter calling for a pause on AI development, criticized the letter on Twitter.
What it refers to
An open letter by Elon Musk and others calling for a six-month pause on advanced AI development, citing risks from human-competitive AI systems.
Other voices
- They basically say the opposite of what we say and cite our paperTimnit GebruResearcher31 March 2023
- Just a giant autocomplete machineGary MarcusResearcher27 January 2023
- AGI will not happen in your lifetimeGrady Booch22 January 2023
- GPT-4 is more interesting to me as a political artifactJack ClarkBuilder20 March 2023
- Every company will have AIDario AmodeiBuilder18 February 2023
ETBrandEquity.comElon Musk's AI letter is a 'hot mess' of hype, say critics - ET BrandEquity