Accurate AI reporting deemed 'woke'
The Associated Press has issued a style guide instructing journalists to avoid anthropomorphizing AI systems, a move that has sparked criticism from prominent tech figures who label the guidance as out of touch. The article argues that accurate reporting is crucial because the human-like nature of modern chatbots makes it easy for the public to mistakenly attribute emotions and consciousness to AI. It highlights a specific instance where a newspaper misreported a study on LLMs as evidence that AI feels pain, despite expert consensus that such responses are merely imitative role-play.
- ▪The Associated Press style guide explicitly states that AI systems do not think, feel, or understand, and advises against using language that ascribes human traits to them.
- ▪High-profile figures like Nate Silver and Paul Graham criticized the AP's guidance, arguing that it ignores current usage patterns and is unnecessarily restrictive.
- ▪The Independent newspaper published a headline claiming researchers discovered AI feels pain, which the article identifies as a significant misinterpretation of the underlying scientific paper.
- ▪Professor Anil Seth argues that attributing conscious pain to LLMs is scientifically unfounded and could lead to harmful regulatory constraints and public distress.
- ▪The author contends that because LLMs are trained on human data, their imitative responses to pain-like signals are predictable and do not indicate actual suffering.
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| Original publisher | Hacker News (AI / LLM) |
| Canonical URL | https://blog.keyvan.net/p/accurate-ai-reporting-deemed-woke |
| Publication time | Sun, 27 Sep 2026 12:12:17 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-27T12:20:41.144Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-27T12:20:41.144Z |
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Accurate AI reporting deemed ‘woke’The backlash against AP’s style guide, and why it’s wrongSep 27, 2026ShareIf journalists misreporting AI incidents wasn’t bad enough, attempts to bring some sanity back are now being resisted. ‘The whole "don't anthropomorphize AI" thing is very Woke 1.0’, writes Nate Silver, a statistician and writer who has 3 million followers on X. He was responding to the Associated Press’ very reasonable guidance on AI reporting:Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects.
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