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Honest Weight Food Co-op’s Community Newsletter for Membership • Staff • Governance • Management Published monthly by the Communications Committee to promote transparency, report without bias, and sustain community.
j u n e 2O26 Honest Weight Food Co-op • 100 Watervliet Avenue, Albany, NY 12206 • 518-482-2667
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Book Club Recap The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna
by Irene Kim With each passing day, artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over more of our daily lives— from summarizing emails to narrating articles to powering chatbots.
Is AI a boon or a menace? Does it help us streamline tasks and find useful solutions? Or is it bewildering us with misinformation, putting us out of work, and destroying our environment? And who really reaps the benefits of using AI?
HWFC’s 50th Anniversary: 1976–2026 Watch for new merch celebrating our 50th: insulated bags, totes, T-shirts, and more.
About a dozen book club attendees met on May 21 to discuss The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna. The book discusses the technologies comprising AI, the shortcomings of using it, how companies are marketing AI’s capabilities, and ways we can resist its encroachment on our lives.
Reflecting on AI CEOs whose commencement speeches were met with boos from graduating students, one attendee marveled at the speakers’ tone deafness and entitlement.
Leader Cara Benson kicked off the session by asking everyone for their thoughts on the term “AI.” Reactions included: anger and resentment at the theft of humans’ creativity and labor, fears about job loss and environmental devastation, hope about better medical diagnoses and procedures, and skepticism that AI would be used for the good of humanity rather than to benefit a very few.
One person enumerated the broad tasks that AI is currently performing: automating input and facilitating decision making, classification of data, recommendations, transcription, and translation, and text and image generation. Cara mentioned that AI is not really intelligence so much as data manipulation, that it will never develop consciousness.
Attendees shared stories of friends
When one person labeled themselves a Luddite, Cara explained that the original Luddites were not strictly anti-technology; instead, they were fierce protectors of workers’ rights in textile mills in the early 19th century. When mill owners brought in au-
whose careers had been eroded by AI and acquaintances who suffered from AI psychosis. More than one attendee suggested that AI could be a good servant but a bad master, and that it should be kept on a short leash. honestslate@honestweight.coop
“AI can be a good servant, but a bad master.”
tomated machines that threatened to put weavers out of work, the Luddites pushed back by destroying the machines. Discussing parallels with the industrial revolution, the group talked about the myth that AI, while eliminating some low-skilled continued on page 2
Regular Membership Meeting Sunday, June 21 • 6pm See meeting details on page 6.
CONTENTS NCG Provides Purchasing Punch.... Punch.... 2 Spicy Nuts & Seeds ........................ 2 Suggestion Box Q & A...................... 3 Board Decisions ............................. 4 Committee Corner ......................... 5 MO Announcements...................... Announcements...................... 6 RMM Information. Information. ......................... 6 https://www.honestweight.coop/