Timnit Gebru
Eritrean computer scientistWikipedia
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Search complete. 38 mentions across 24 episodes found for "Timnit Gebru".
Sep 17, 2026
Leah FeigerHOST
Even if like the paperclip scenario is this outlandish thing, we have already experienced different flavors of that.
Leah FeigerHOST
You know, this week, Wired's Lauren Goode spoke with Timnit Gebru, a computer scientist who says we're asking the wrong questions, and that the debate is a kind of a distraction from harms that are already happening, including autonomous weapons in warfare, AI's role in climate change, labor displacement, AI-assisted attempts to build weapons that Anthropic says it's already blocked, like you've mentioned.
Leah FeigerHOST
There's, there's like a lot of really interesting things in here that, I don't know, I, I, I think I agree with like the very nitty-gritties of yes, we have to be talking about these specific things, while simultaneously I'm okay using the paperclip scenario to say, "Okay, this is happening.
Leah FeigerHOST
Where could it take us next?"
Danielle BrooksGUEST
Y'all.
Brittany Packnett CunninghamHOST
Yeah, let me keep going here because I really appreciated the comment in response to all of this from Dr. Timnit Gebru, founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute.
Brittany Packnett CunninghamHOST
Y'all remember her.
Brittany Packnett CunninghamHOST
She was one of the earliest whistleblowers before all the white boys took all the airtime.
Jeff JarvisHOST
And you've heard me on this show talk about TESCRAIL.
Jeff JarvisHOST
It's the acronym that was created by Timnit Gebru, the researcher, and Emil Torres.
Jeff JarvisHOST
Stands for transhumanism, extroprianism, singulitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, long-termism, but never mind all that.
Jeff JarvisHOST
It's a bunch of full philosophies that guide many of these people.
James MenendezHOST
The, uh, Democratic congressman, uh, Sam Liccardo there.
James MenendezHOST
But what if those fears about the destructive power of AI are entirely misplaced? I've been speaking to Timnit Gebru, founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute, set up in its words to counter Big Tech's pervasive influence on the research, development, and deployment of AI.
James MenendezHOST
Timnit's a computer scientist who once worked for Google.
James MenendezHOST
She argues that stirring up fears about AI is a deliberate distraction ploy by the tech firms.
Timnit GebruGUEST
And this is company, gross company incompetence and negligence that would've le- have landed someone, uh, being fired or on the news for that reason i- in normal times [laughs], and they did not pro- uh, follow established security protocols that are extremely well-known and established within the security industry for decades.
Timnit GebruGUEST
And if you really speak to cybersecurity experts, like, and there are so many people, like Heidi Claaff is one, cybersecurity firms, not, you know, so-called alignment firms like Meter, y- this is what they would tell you.
James MenendezHOST
And I was speaking there to Timnit Gebru, a computer scientist and founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute.
James MenendezHOST
Uh, much more on this story, the debate about the development of AI and some of the warnings, uh, in recent days on our website, bbc.com/news, where you can also find updates on all our top stories, uh, updated throughout the day.
Leo LaporteHOST
Can you k- k- kind of just summarize w- what do they belie- what is it that they, they believe?
Jeff JarvisHOST
So, um, the best place to go for this, uh, the, the, uh, uh, acronym comes from Timnit Gebru and Emil Torres.
Jeff JarvisHOST
And if you google Tescreal, you'll find their first Monday paper that it's the best description of this.
Jeff JarvisHOST
What's really frightening about this is that when they pull, when you pull back to the roots of these beliefs that, that we owe our future to...
11 MINS LATER
Jeff JarvisHOST
Exactly.
Leo LaporteHOST
That's a, that's a terrifying-
Jeff JarvisHOST
That's what, that's what, um, uh, Timnit Gebru and Emil Torres really dug down to, was the eugenicist roots of all of this.
Jeff JarvisHOST
And media do not cover that.
Leo LaporteHOST
Can you- Kind of just summarize, what is it that they
Jeff JarvisHOST
believe? So the best place to go for this, the acronym comes from Timnit Gebru and Emil Torres.
Jeff JarvisHOST
And if you Google TESCREAL, you'll find their first Monday paper that it's the best description of this.
Jeff JarvisHOST
What's really frightening about this is that when you pull back to the roots of these beliefs that we owe our future to, Nick Bostrom says we owe the 10 to the 54th future human beings, including machine human beings, of the future, that anything today is trivial by comparison, including the Holocaust.
29 MINS LATER
Robert BallecerGUEST
And it's like, wait a minute, that was an option? No one thought that maybe that
Leo LaporteHOST
shouldn't be included? Yeah.
Leo LaporteHOST
Well, initially, I think they just train it on everything, right? And then somebody pointed out, I think maybe Timnit Gebru, that if you don't train it on certain areas of human thought, it can't do anything.
Jeff JarvisHOST
Well, that's part of the argument.
Kimberly BeckerHOST
They ended up canceling projects that were threatening, that these people were concerned about.
Kimberly BeckerHOST
And this is when Timnit Gebru got fired.
Kimberly BeckerHOST
And so back to Emily Bender, Timnit Gebru and Emily Bender wrote that viral research article about stochastic parrots.
JessicaHOST
Yeah.
JessicaHOST
That is what I was thinking about when this started.
16 MINS LATER
Kimberly BeckerHOST
Some of it was economic conditions, sure.
Kimberly BeckerHOST
But some of it was like absolutely about breaking labor power before workers could organize against AI deployment.
Kimberly BeckerHOST
I mean, read anything that Timnit Gebru has written, and I will link some things in the show notes.
Jeff JarvisHOST
That's terrifying.
Jeff JarvisHOST
That's what Timnit Gebru and Emil Torres really dug down to was the eugenicist roots of all of this.
Jeff JarvisHOST
And media do not cover that.
Jeff JarvisHOST
And so they talk about the people who believe all this stuff as the safety people, because that's what they call themselves, because this is their definition of safety, is we're defending the future for the smartest people who we're going to make.
Johana BhuyianGUEST
there are? The dangers, the dangers are, I mean, they're actually quite scary.
Johana BhuyianGUEST
It's one thing that Dr. Timnit Gebru, who used to work at Google and is this big, you know, she is an AI researcher and really is concerned about the very real term threats.
Johana BhuyianGUEST
She talks about this constantly, but it is, you know, people are trying to build bioweapons and missiles and just weaponry generally, and they're using AI models to do that.
Johana BhuyianGUEST
And Anthropic said that they found an instance of the Chinese government using their AI model to surveil Uyghurs in Syria.
Lurie Daniel FavorsHOST
AI is going to destroy humanity.
Lurie Daniel FavorsHOST
And as I said yesterday, Timnit Gebru, who is the black woman, one of the leading authors of research.
Lurie Daniel FavorsHOST
She used to be at Google and she has been someone who has been hollering and trying to get the whole world to pay attention to the fact that there is a lot of things wrong with AI.
Lurie Daniel FavorsHOST
But what she has said in this moment.
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