On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 9:21 PM Tim via users <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, 2025-08-27 at 11:22 +0100, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > > So much for AI ... > > I always say it stands for Artificial Idiot. But when it comes to > using it with a search engine for results, it might as well stand for > "Ask an Idiot." > > When I search for something and AI summary appears in the results, I > often find it's like you've asked an eight year old to explain > something to you that they don't understand. And when it comes to > technical things, it's just doing a "they say" regurgitating of scraped > data, that often comes from non-expert sources. > Many sites are just SEO clickbait using AI-generated content and zero effort to ensure correct information. There are a few very good examples. One was looking for a way to generate a chemical with certain properties. AI found it in a journal outside the field of the investigators. We may see further advances in chemistry from AI improving access to relevant literature, but copyright protections tend to create silos that work against that. I asked AI's a question based on a paper that pointed out a fundamental problem with a method published years ago. GPT-3 came up the answer citing the old paper. GPT-5 explained the factor the old paper got wrong, but you have to ask for citations. Yesterday I read in ARS Technica about Google's cyclone track prediction project that outdid the conventional physics based models for short-term (couple days) track predictions. I think it is using historical data and picking examples similar to the current data, so essentially sifting thru massive data sets for a previous storm that started out with similar characteristics to the current system. > > A while ago I was searching the internet for an answer how to do > something with HTML and CSS and avoiding any scripting, and AI results > kept cropping up that were utterly wrong, every time. And it's getting > harder and harder to research things when you keep getting crap like > that presented. > > It may well be a better human language recognition algorithm than older > speech recognition, but it really doesn't know anything or have an > ability to sort truth from fiction. It's like dealing with conspiracy > theorists. > > But people are treating it like some kind of magic spell. Say the > right invocation, and make it do something you want, without ever > learning how to do things for yourself. I don't see this boding well > for future humanity. > I agree with these 3 points. In Linux support forms there are users who blindly apply AI-generated "solutions" without making any effort to understand the text that comes after "sudo". I expect the same lack of effort occurs in repair shops that have laid off experienced workers. -- George N. White III
-- _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[email protected] Do not reply to spam, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/new_issue
