Alex Hanna (اليكس حنٌا)
@alexhanna
Followers
29,310
Following
4,791
Media
2,632
Statuses
114,395
Director of Research @DAIRInstitute \ 🛼 @BayAreaDerby \ THE AI CON @HarperBooks (soon) \ 🇪🇬⚧ She/هي \ 🐘alex @dair -community.social \ Rep 📝 @ianbonaparte
Unceded Ohlone Land
Joined January 2007
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Galatasaray
• 110407 Tweets
Al Jazeera
• 102114 Tweets
Bernard Hill
• 86079 Tweets
Vlad
• 82440 Tweets
#GSvSVS
• 71298 Tweets
Spurs
• 66354 Tweets
Tottenham
• 62816 Tweets
West Ham
• 60174 Tweets
سعد اللذيذ
• 48917 Tweets
Theoden
• 44784 Tweets
Happy Cinco de Mayo
• 31198 Tweets
Ziyech
• 28038 Tweets
Mertens
• 26534 Tweets
Cavs
• 26258 Tweets
Anfield
• 19676 Tweets
Sivas
• 19069 Tweets
#محمد_عبده
• 18557 Tweets
Garland
• 18277 Tweets
Tim Scott
• 17319 Tweets
Paolo
• 17232 Tweets
LOSE MY BREATH MV TEASER 2
• 15482 Tweets
Emerson
• 14941 Tweets
Gakpo
• 13715 Tweets
Bülent Uygun
• 11254 Tweets
توتنهام
• 10122 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
The cat's out of the bag!
@emilymbender
and I are pleased to bring you THE AI CON, forthcoming at
@HarperBooks
in Spring 2025. Thanks so much to
@ianbonaparte
for shepherding this project.
50
127
550
At this point they are effectively trying to get Tlaib killed.
Rashida Tlaib has alleged ties to Hamas.
Based on these allegations, it’s sadly not surprising she’s calling for a genocide against the Jewish people.
6K
2K
7K
28
3K
18K
Universities really showing their whole asses as "banks that sometimes teach classes" right now.
Keep it up.
16
3K
18K
I see we've moved onto the "using Black people as propaganda" part of the campaign.
"I drove an hour and a half for a kiss and a hug from my little brother ❤️(That’s all the time he had).
We are going to win this!"
Thank you to
@AshagerAraro
and to our brave men and women in uniform for keeping us safe 💙🇮🇱.
Love,
Israel
4K
2K
15K
82
4K
17K
It's wild that university admin are choosing to police protests so heavily so close to the end of the semester.
Administrators typically wait students out. "If they want to spend their summers camping on the quad, go ham."
It points to a deeper nerve these students have struck.
30
1K
12K
Holy shit. Google fired 28 workers for protesting against its $1.2 billion contract with the IDF. Solidarity with these workers of conscience.
75
4K
10K
I'm a Google employee and, now, a proud card-carrying member of the Alphabet Workers Union.
Tech workers need a union because we can't rely on the good graces of tech leaders to do right by us and society.
We're Alphabet workers. We’ve been organizing for over a year, & we’re finally ready to share why.
This morning, we're announcing
#AWU
, the first union open to *all* workers at any Alphabet company.
Every worker deserves a union—including tech workers.
347
7K
30K
74
855
6K
has anyone developed a plugin that puts an expiration date on a tab
like a popup that goes "it's been three months, Sharon. Let it go and know peace"
71
655
6K
Apparently Twitter uses a facial analysis algorithm to center image previews. This quick little robustness test shows how it centers the white guy in both images.
29
2K
4K
Today's my last day at Google. Starting tomorrow I'm joining
@timnitGebru
at
@DAIRInstitute
as Director of Research.
On my way out, here's some thoughts on the tech company as a racialized organization and the power of complaint.
214
800
4K
please send this to every computer vision researcher, thanks
10
507
3K
Oh no. No no no. Absolutely not. Fuck this.
Using footage of its streets, San Jose is training algorithms to detect unwanted objects--including tents and cars with people living inside.
This experiment with automated surveillance of homelessness is the first of its kind in the country:
101
2K
2K
15
720
3K
Happy
#TransDayOfVisibility
We can't eat visibility, though. Give money to:
Poor trans people
Black/brown trans people
Disabled trans people
Trans sex workers
Trans people with medical and student loan debt
Thanks.
18
1K
3K
Expect a whole lot more solidarity protests with Columbia. Auntie Shafik didn't want an Arab Spring, but she's gonna get Solidarity Summer.
Boston University students walked out of class today to protest the arrests of 100+ pro-Palestinian student demonstrators at Columbia University yesterday. Students at Harvard and MIT are also walking out today.
280
8K
23K
8
465
3K
Absolutely damning report. AI is VASTLY expanding targets in Gaza, maximizing the scope of death l.
a very detailed and horrifying anatomization of algorithmic genocide in gaza
21
923
2K
17
1K
2K
Following
@prisonculture
, I'm also withdrawing participating at an event at
@Columbia
later this month. Shameful.
NEWS: Columbia University is suspending Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as official student groups through the end of the fall term.
583
4K
8K
22
442
2K
Three months ago Google had two ethics co-lead.
It has fired both and is running a smear campaign on them, to boot.
14
710
2K
Wouldn't it be great if Google had a team that could have advised on this.
Oh wait, they literally fired the person who did the first AI study that consulted with dermatologists on darker skin tones.
NEW: Google released an app that diagnoses skin conditions based on photos.... but it won't work on people with darker skin
only ~3% of the training data used in the deep learning model contained photos of people with darker skin (Fitzpatrick Type V + VI)
41
666
2K
7
544
2K
Israel propaganda: here is a calendar in the basement of a hospital that we bombed
Palestinian propaganda: your uncle smoking a cigarette in his own bombed home refusing to ever leave
7
446
2K
It's not lost on me that the author of this message, Head of Global Security Chris Rackow, was formerly a Navy SEAL, at the FBI, and a development manager at Raytheon.
Military industrial complex and Big Tech going hand-in-glove quite nicely.
Google just announced internally that 28 employees have been fired in connection with sit-in office protests this week over the company's cloud contract with Israel. Follows 9 employees being arrested yesterday.
Full memo to Google employees warns that "if you’re one of the few…
248
2K
5K
66
687
2K
Because he can't harass me on Twitter, Michael Lissack deciding to harass me over email.
Absolutely normal stuff, right here.
140
201
1K
You cannot speak about tech resistance without acknowledging that so many tools of surveillance and oppression are created, tested, and trialed by the Israeli apartheid state.
"Gaza is a cage, is the biggest prison in the world. Nobody spoke about lifting the siege. People who live 70 years in a cage want to resist, and if they have the possibility they'll do it..."
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy speaking on BBC News.
130
3K
12K
9
444
1K
"We cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially
worse."
State Dept official resigns in protest of Biden Admin policy re Israel’s assault on Gaza. Read his letter:
94
998
3K
2
373
1K
Incredible props to the students and their allies: they've done the analysis, they've connected the Palestinian struggle with the dirty roots of university investment in Israeli militarism and global policing technology.
1
71
1K
People are rightfully dunking in this take, but can we just say how much OpenAI employees are getting high on their own supply? Absolutely no reflexivity, knowledge of history, or critical analysis. Just vibes.
Just had a quite emotional, personal conversation w/ ChatGPT in voice mode, talking about stress, work-life balance. Interestingly I felt heard & warm. Never tried therapy before but this is probably it? Try it especially if you usually just use it as a productivity tool.
582
219
3K
24
183
1K
Jeff Dean now emailing the whole of the research organization, spreading misinformation and misconstruals about the conditions of
@timnitGebru
's firing.
Google researchers: don't buy it.
18
141
1K
Keanu has a better economic analysis than most of your tech editors out there
Finally, I took a moment to explore some recent comments made by Keanu Reeves on deepfakes, AI tools, and where he sees all this going. He’s another prominent person not buying the hype, and warning about the very real consequences of where we’re headed.
21
1K
4K
6
246
1K
Horrid new report from
@972mag
on an "AI" system called Lavender and "Where's Daddy?" used by the IDF. Has a 10% error rate, and acceptable "collateral" from 15 to 100 civilians per target.
This is sick and the future of AI warfare for US Empire.
12
520
1K
When you use unintentionally use the perfect metaphor for a technology bubble which is about to come crashing down
15
185
1K
I remember when I was so EXCITED to get the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and then HORRIFIED when no one told me I had to self-withhold my taxes and got hit with a $4,000 tax bill of my princely $30,000 annual stipend.
Anyhow, fuck that guy.
#750dollars
21
62
1K
Wait wait wait, they appointed _that_ Larry Summers to the board? Larry "Women aren't good at STEM" Summers?
We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo.
We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this.
6K
13K
67K
37
201
971
Google: we don't retaliate
Also Google: *fires the leading Black researcher on ethical AI and three trans organizers*
I was fired by
@JeffDean
for my email to Brain women and Allies. My corp account has been cutoff. So I've been immediately fired :-)
392
1K
7K
6
284
951
If this isn't a metaphor about the futures we were promised versus the one we live in...
apparently this was sold as a live Willy Wonka Experience but they used all AI images on the website to sell tickets and then people showed up and saw this and it got so bad people called the cops lmao
2K
20K
230K
9
237
933
Good on them. If people who attended event like the HRC dinner had a shred of humanity they'd be interrupting Biden en masse.
BREAKING: Jewish activist interrupts President Biden’s speech at
@HRC
calling for ceasefire in Gaza and protection of civilians
403
3K
10K
8
168
925
In
@WIRED
today,
@mer__edith
and I write on how the firing of
@timnitGebru
exposes the dual crisis of AI research: failures of diversity and the dominance of corporate funding and control.
19
361
922
It's incredibly wild to get an email from your VP, telling you your boss has resigned when your boss hasn't resigned.
Apparently my manager’s manager sent an email my direct reports saying she accepted my resignation. I hadn’t resigned—I had asked for simple conditions first and said I would respond when I’m back from vacation. But I guess she decided for me :) that’s the lawyer speak.
221
528
5K
15
92
872
RIGHT NOW: Palestinian activists are staging a die-in in front of Google offices in San Francisco to say NO TECH FOR GENOCIDE.
7
269
864
It turns out the Ethical AI team was the last to know about a massive reorganization, which was prompted by our advocacy. This was not communicated with us at all, despite promises that it would be.
23
266
845
A friend of mine used the robotic coffeemaker at SFO because of the SFO airport workers' strike and then asked if they crossed a picket line by using the machine.
Now I'm thinking about writing 2,000 words pondering if robots can be scabs.
24
101
796
Incredibly cursed research methodology just dropped.
1/ Qualitative interviews offer unparalleled richness but are rarely used in economics. Let's change that! New WP with
@Ingar30
uses an AI-driven approach to conducting q qualitative interviews, making them scalable, cheap, and ripe for both qualitative and quantitative analysis!
46
242
1K
28
126
792
Seeing VC and tech CEO Twitter grossly misunderstand labor law is a sight to behold.
12
60
757
What a remarkably awful institution. Took 101 attempts to elect a leader, but can censure someone with bipartisan support to say "stop killing my people."
234–188: House votes to censure
@RepRashida
(D-MI) for "promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and calling for the destruction of the state of Israel."
46
92
261
7
153
750
WOW. Google cancels the AI ethics board after only a week. Collective organizing WORKS, folks.
9
229
731
I've been incredibly fortunate, and that was only possible with many, many mentors, friends, and supportive family, chosen and blood.
I'm hoping to pass that on, so with
@UWSoc
I've started a scholarship fund targeting QTPOC undergrads in sociology.
43
123
750
36. Wasn't sure I'd get here. Immensely grateful to all the people on my life who have held me and helped me get to where I'm at.
96
2
743
What is this hot garbage,
#NeurIPS2019
? "Facial Reconstruction from Voice using Generative Adversarial Networks" in which the authors generate faces from voice.
Computer scientists and machine learning people, please stop this awful transphobic shit.
42
203
742
Holy crap. Solidarity with
@RainofTerra
and other trans employees at Netflix.
Netflix suspends trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle special
1K
3K
8K
10
166
711
I have a feeling the next variant will be transmissible via Zoom
13
48
680
this is the most Egyptian shit that's ever happened
53
91
674
Thinking about writing a long "so you're a techno-realist/techno critic but you want to move into industry because academia has been crumbling under the weight of late capitalism " blog post. Would there be interest?
50
24
672
Hello my current style is Endowed Chair of Near East Studies and I do not regret one bit
49
1
638
During a pandemic and during Pride month. It feels like a common refrain at this point, but there is no bottom for these people.
BREAKING: The Trump administration just finalized a rule that would remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people in health care and health insurance.
5K
49K
69K
17
167
592
The amount of disrespect and straight-up gaslighting that
@timnitGebru
is at the receiving end from our employer right now is chilling.
Google could be one of the research leaders on the social implications of AI and tech. But they're choosing to go the other way.
9
63
574
When we talk about not relying on machine translation by Big Tech, this is what we mean. When machine translations from Arabic, a language spoken by hundreds of millions of people, still produces dross like this, the necessity of community-oriented tech is made very plainly.
IG users discovered that the platform was inserting the word "terrorist" into bios that included "Palestinian" and "ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّٰهِ"
when I asked about it, Meta told me it's very sorry — but didn't explain how it happened
1
4K
9K
15
252
567
So many people in our emails and mentions, warning us to not use the word "genocide."
There's a voluminous academic literature on genocide, but I'll defer to this devastating letter written by this UN human rights lawyer.
The Director of the UN's New York office just resigned after thirty years at the organisation over the UN's handling of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
The entirety of his resignation letter is a necessary read but this first page blew me away.
1K
143K
245K
16
225
564
Y'all can I just take a second of this shit and say how good
@timnitGebru
is? Up until all of the trashstorm today, she was still offering to help give feedback on Perf and she is reminding folks to take care of themselves right now.
They don't deserve her, honestly.
5
30
562
I think I'm still in shock that my employer fired two of my managers within three months of each other.
And did so one day after announcing a "recommitment" to responsible AI with puff press.
It's just unbelievably bad PR and would be laughable if it wasn't messing up lives.
7
57
535
Being told to meditate the gaslighting away is some next level shit.
11
28
524
Amazon just putting a job ad out for union busters these days.
🧐
Spot the huge, glaring, "OMG did they really spell that out???" problem here:
161
2K
8K
7
229
515
This is, by far, the funniest message I've ever gotten on this app
12
54
523
Co-signed. Timnit fought tooth and nail to get me hired as a social scientist within Google Research, the first on the research ladder. She fought as hard to get two more social scientists on staff.
To call her unbecoming of a manager is the height of disrespect.
3
35
513
Trying to cancel all the meetings I have today. Definitely am in no state to interview a potential intern right now, other than to say "run and stay far, far away."
20
8
512
Oh, those DEI commitments from 2020 were just marketing? You don't say...
NEW: Tech companies, including Meta and Google have downsized and cut DEI initiatives following major vocal commitments the prior few years. We found cuts to ERGs, learning, & DEI staffers at what experts tell us is an inflection point with the rise of AI.
33
193
334
5
143
513
Chills at this. Reminds me of Egyptian revolution Christians who linked hands in front of Muslims in prayer to protect them from charging security forces.
Columbia University students formed a human shield with blankets to provide privacy to others participating in Friday prayer after pro-zionist accounts on social media published a video showing students praying on the lawn.
Credit: Katie Smith
87
2K
7K
2
125
513
A researcher who has been non-stop harassing my team, my collaborators, and me for 20 days asks if I want him dead.
No, even in your harassment I do not want you dead.
But right now nearly 8,000 in Gaza are dead and I'm focused on them and those who have survived them.
24
49
480
As an Arab trans woman, my body has always been subject to suspicion while traveling. In a 9/11 world, going to the airport is a continually a fraught and nightmarish experience. That's why for this Pride month, I'm partnering with the TSA-
10
16
481
I gotta say, only one week since I've quit and I'm feeling great. Eating better breakfasts, more motivated to workout, even my chickens are laying more consistently. 🤣
I highly recommend quitting.
12
10
488
Why is this a thing that should be celebrated?
These people really just think that words are tokens to be manipulated, that plausible-sounding text extruded by machines is a replacement for real communication and intent.
openai now generates about 100 billion words per day.
all people on earth generate about 100 trillion words per day.
1K
1K
15K
14
95
480
Get rid of AI image generation yesterday. So many bad and awful uses for this technology.
Yesterday, a 15-year-old victim of deepfake sexual abuse spoke at the U.S. Capitol about the urgent need for a law addressing nonconsensual sexually-explicit deepfakes. More than 30 girls at her New Jersey high school were victimized in October.
44
3K
8K
3
111
468
Good morning to everyone this morning except Jeff Dean and the rest of Google leadership.
7
28
468
Google's Greg Corrado saying the quiet part aloud: we need to offer medical LLMs to the poor, but I don't want my family subject to them.
15
191
468
unpopular (?) opinion: in-text citations of the format (Hanna 2019) are highly superior to in-text citations of the format [1] because of the work that citations do for signaling knowledge communities/subdisciplines. otherwise you gotta read the dang thing with two windows open
20
34
467
The trolls are now making up accounts of ethicists who work at Google. This person is completely made up.
17
103
459
Google is a breeding ground to abusers, opportunity hoarders, and people only concerned with ego and prestige.
But anyone who is willing to defend friends against discrimination, who lift up voices who need to be heard, are shown the door.
5
95
457
Is it against the Google Code of Conduct to aid and abet 40,000 Palestinian deaths?
Google just announced internally that 28 employees have been fired in connection with sit-in office protests this week over the company's cloud contract with Israel. Follows 9 employees being arrested yesterday.
Full memo to Google employees warns that "if you’re one of the few…
248
2K
5K
5
127
458
Google equating Palestine with terrorism. Organizers: divest from Google.
so google disabled my account that i used to make my folder with educational content on Palestine, i.e the drive folder that i had linked in my bio
265
6K
42K
3
109
433
Most papers that go through Google's publication approval process do not meet the mythical "two week" approval requirement, and 41% of them are approved AFTER the submission deadline.
Let's call a spade a spade here.
#ISupportTimnit
Timnit Gebru’s team at Google is going public with their side of the story
8
196
641
6
67
446
Jeff's fixation on the pub approval process is a red herring. Just the sentence that the process goes through many "social scientists and ethicists" is laughable.
The process is brittle and is being used as an excuse to get rid of a strident DEI advocate and a vocal Black woman.
I understand the concern over Timnit’s resignation from Google. She’s done a great deal to move the field forward with her research. I wanted to share the email I sent to Google Research and some thoughts on our research process.
660
194
2K
7
59
444
We stand with
@timnitGebru
#ISupportTimnit
We stand with
@timnitGebru
. We call on Google Research to strengthen its commitment to research integrity and to unequivocally commit to supporting research that honors the commitments made in Google’s AI Principles. Sign the letter:
32
645
2K
2
42
441
*screams in social movement researcher*
Usher, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Julianne Hough will host competition series ‘The Activist’.
Activists go head-to-head in challenges to promote their causes, with their success measured via online engagement, social metrics, and hosts’ input.
()
4K
573
3K
23
35
441
Life as a queer academic
4
47
431
luv 2 get emails from recruiters for positions I was rejected for because I was too vocal on the internet 🙃🙃🙃
8
12
430
I
I h
I ha
I hav
I have
I have 2
I have 28
I have 280
I have 280 c
I have 280 ch
I have 280 cha
I have 280 char
I have 280 chara
I have 280 charac
I have 280 charact
I have 280 characte
I have 280 character
I have 280 characters
oh god this is awful
9
94
407
This is horrifying. Queer students, who may be searching for information about LGBTQ topics at school, have higher risks for surveillance and outing at school. We already know that even the most "sophisticated" AI flag any mention of queer issues as possible sexual content.
My piece in
@Slate
discusses how surveillance technologies in schools pose tremendous danger to LGBTQ students. Companies like Gaggle have already outed queer students using their surveillance tech. This is extremely dangerous with what's happening in TX.
8
331
663
6
153
425
A fascinating, subtler point here: AI-colorization is probably coloring historical images using a Western and/or modernist lens. Think of the vibrancy of Islamic architecture in the former Ottoman Empire and what this makes dull.
Colorization APIs are becoming widespread; AI-colorized historical photos are circulated without caveat. But is AI colorization providing an accurate image of the past? To find out, I digitally desaturated these color photos by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, taken between 1909 and 1915.
120
6K
13K
4
135
424
"simply call your insurance" is a sentence written by someone who has never called their insurance
7
64
428
Can't help but feel pride in so many students--Columbia, BU, Yale, UNC, and likely many schools that are not going to get any press--putting themselves on the line for Gaza.
Meanwhile, many of my tenured peers haven't said a peep about the genocide in over six months.
1
95
427
Tis perf season around these parts, so happy to report that I've been promoted to Senior Research Scientist (aka Google tenure [jk we're still all at-will employees])
45
5
415
I think what's striking about this is how much of the time facial analysis tech is embedded in products that you think it's not, and how those deployments don't just enhance racism, but they provide brand new vectors of racism that you can't even dream up.
3
92
412
what's the German word for the feeling of when you get misgendered on a call but don't want to point that out because there's only like 10 minutes left and it'll take 10 minutes for this cis person to apologize
17
31
404
So
@sundarpichai
's non-apology is more than just a non-apology. It's a dodge which equates social systems with engineering systems and obscures the power running through those systems.
/end rant
8
34
406
Meg Mitchell is still suspended from her corporate account. The last email that the Ethical AI team got from research leadership was over two weeks ago.
We're in the lurch and left out to dry. This should tell you a lot about what Google thinks about ethics research.
13
60
402
Wild. OpenAI releases three models, and only now, says they will allow artists to opt out of only future models.
This is so broken. You need active consent and compensation for these artists _now_.
They can’t make the new DALL-E unlearn what it knows but OpenAI says it will decline requests for a “living” artist’s style and that it will take an artist’s work out of its training data for future models if requested. Opt-out is here:
17
64
153
15
140
393