[ Jer moved instances ]Sep 30, 2023
I've been talking about how AI will directly lead to Idiocracy (2006) scenarios (like Brawndo has what plants crave, Charlie Chaplin leading the 3rd Reich, etc) for some time, but today's update to the "can you melt eggs?" saga is as clear an illustration of how as I think it's possible to ever have.

Quora's AI answers made up the melting point of eggs, and then Google picked it up and responded affirmatively that you can indeed melt eggs.

Then people wrote articles about how stupid it is that Google says eggs can melt. Then Google fixes the answer.

Then Google ingests an article about how stupid it is that Google says you can melt eggs, and suddenly Google starts answering affirmatively again that you can melt eggs, citing the article about how stupid Google is for thinking you can melt eggs.
Show thread[ Jer moved instances ]Sep 30, 2023
It's basically the knowledge version of the Grey Goo scenario.

From grey goo to the grey lady.
Gray goo - Wikipedia

Show threadGNU/Matt  Sep 30, 2023

@nyquildotorg I remember in university when internet sites were not considered primary sources for research, because we understood that anyone could publish anything.

Now it publishes itself

Show threadTane Piper ⁂Sep 30, 2023
@gnuplusmatt @nyquildotorg If Wikipedia keeps a human in the loop at all times, there's a good chance for it to become the authoritative source, although human bias will then always creep in.
Show threadDaniel Schildt

@tanepiper There's a good amount of bots on Wikipedia, but fortunately those mainly focus on fixing metadata related issues.

@gnuplusmatt @nyquildotorg

Sep 30, 2023 at 10:26amWeb
Show threadBornachSep 30, 2023

@autiomaa @tanepiper @gnuplusmatt @nyquildotorg

Although wikipedia are far from immune
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents

Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents - Wikipedia