Pinned
It’s out! I started work on my first and last WIRED feature three years ago. It’s about space law, satellite constellations, colonization, and a team of young women from Zimbabwe
Khari Johnson
9,227 posts
Khari Johnson
@kharijohnson
Citizen, human, tech reporter @calmatters and @themarkup, formerly @wired @venturebeat, on Bluesky bsky.app/profile/khari.…
- Welp @WIRED laid me off alongside a bunch of other talented people, and on the way out the door I want to appreciate some stories that I was proud to write while reporting on how AI can harm people, accelerate inequality, violate human rights, and threaten society. A thread 🧵:
- ~Personal News~ I'm heading to @WIRED, where I’ll be a senior writer focused on AI. I start next month and am excited to work with people like @ScottThurm, @tsimonite, and @willknight. DMs are open if you want to talk or get Signal contact info.
- I spoke with three men falsely identified with facial recognition about the impact those accusations had on them and their families and relationships with loved ones and neighbors. All three all fathers, they all filed lawsuits, and they're all Black men.
- :) it’s my first day at @WIRED so feel free to ping me and tell me what stories you think I should be writing
- 📢 Personal news 📢 Later this month I'll join the CalMatters team to work as their first tech reporter. Covering how AI enables human rights abuses at @venturebeat and @WIRED sharpened my focus on policy and power, and I can’t wait to work with the @calmatters team. A quick 🧵:
- For my first @WIRED story I spoke with @black_in_ai, @QueerinAI, and @WiNLPWorkshop organizers about why the three organizations chose to end funding relationships with Google
- I spoke with @timnitgebru for a Q&A interview about a recent memo by Google CEO Sundar Pichai, toxic work culture, corporate AI research funding, and what she thinks should happen nextTimnit Gebru: Google's 'dehumanizing' memo paints me as an angry Black woman wp.me/p8wLEc-b9ik by @kharijohnson
- As a journalist covering AI, sometimes I write brief stories or breaking news, and sometimes I write things that require a little bit more oomph. Here’s a 🧵on the stories that required a bit of oomph. I see value in reflection after a year like 2020.
- I read the AI research paper at the center of why Timnit Gebru no longer works at Google. It’s about the risks and consequences of deploying large language models. It’s written by Gebru, linguist Emily Bender, and others like Margaret Mitchell, Google’s other AI ethics co-leadAI ethics pioneer's exit from Google involved research into inequality in large language models wp.me/p8wLEc-b8SM by @kharijohnson
- Replying to @kharijohnsonFirst up is reporting on how face recognition did more than violate the legal rights of falsely arrested Black men. It also had serious repercussions on their interpersonal relationships and the lives of people in their families.
- This is like asking a group of arsonists how to put out a fireArtificial Intelligence is one of the most powerful tools of our time, but to seize its opportunities, we must first mitigate its risks. Today, I dropped by a meeting with AI leaders to touch on the importance of innovating responsibly and protecting people's rights and safety.
00:00 - “I don't want to talk about sentient robots, because at all ends of the spectrum there are humans harming other humans, and that’s where I’d like the conversation to be focused." - @timnitGebru
