Try Googling: country in africa that starts with k
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

On 8/19/23 8:46 AM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> Try Googling: country in africa that starts with k

AI gone mad.

Appropriately, I'm in the middle of reading Craig Stanfill's _Prophecy
of the Heron_, which is about AI gone mad.

Sometimes bad search engine results can be amusing or even informative.
I was trying to get some information on Salem, New Hampshire, on
DuckDuckGo. Getting some results about Salem, Massachusetts would have
been normal, but the first result was about Salem, Germany. I hadn't
known there is such a place.

This was probably because I was going through Frankfurt using a VPN.
That implies that DuckDuckGo uses my IP address to affect its results,
which says it isn't as private as I'd like.

--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Try Googling: country in africa that starts with k

I don't see any failure. Google found a website discussing the issue
immediately. That website is of course wrong, but Google finds information,
it does not validate it.

A friend of mine teaches undergraduate astronomy and she is AMAZED some of
the crazy stuff that students come up with when they do their research with
google. She's at the point where she has a standardized reply for people
mentioning Planet Nibiru.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 3:43:08 PM UTC-4, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >Try Googling: country in africa that starts with k
> I don't see any failure. Google found a website discussing the issue
> immediately. That website is of course wrong, but Google finds information,
> it does not validate it.
>
> A friend of mine teaches undergraduate astronomy and she is AMAZED some of
> the crazy stuff that students come up with when they do their research with
> google. She's at the point where she has a standardized reply for people
> mentioning Planet Nibiru.

It's not new AI; some of the pages Google finds for this are two years old.

--
Evelyn C. Leeper

On Sat, 19 Aug 2023 19:43:05 +0000, Scott Dorsey wrote:

> Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>Try Googling: country in africa that starts with k
>
> I don't see any failure. Google found a website discussing the issue
> immediately. That website is of course wrong, but Google finds
> information,
> it does not validate it.

And Google might be finding it so easily because lots of people
have been asking that question. The search completion box showed that
as the top suggestion for me, above "country in Africa that speaks
Spanish." And I bet it showed me /that/ second because I've been
using Google Translate a lot to improve my Spanish reading skill.

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 3:47:44 AM UTC-4, Charles Packer wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Aug 2023 19:43:05 +0000, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>
> > Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >>Try Googling: country in africa that starts with k
> >
> > I don't see any failure. Google found a website discussing the issue
> > immediately. That website is of course wrong, but Google finds
> > information,
> > it does not validate it.
> And Google might be finding it so easily because lots of people
> have been asking that question. The search completion box showed that
> as the top suggestion for me, above "country in Africa that speaks
> Spanish." And I bet it showed me /that/ second because I've been
> using Google Translate a lot to improve my Spanish reading skill.

No, I'm seeing that second as well.

--
Evelyn C. Leeper

On 8/20/23 3:47 AM, Charles Packer wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Aug 2023 19:43:05 +0000, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>
>> Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> Try Googling: country in africa that starts with k
>>
>> I don't see any failure. Google found a website discussing the issue
>> immediately. That website is of course wrong, but Google finds
>> information,
>> it does not validate it.
>
> And Google might be finding it so easily because lots of people
> have been asking that question. The search completion box showed that
> as the top suggestion for me, above "country in Africa that speaks
> Spanish." And I bet it showed me /that/ second because I've been
> using Google Translate a lot to improve my Spanish reading skill.

It was the top suggestion for me as well, but the reason may be that
word has gotten around and people want to see the silly "explanation"
for themselves.
--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 9:30:21 AM UTC-4, Gary McGath wrote:
> On 8/20/23 3:47 AM, Charles Packer wrote:
> > On Sat, 19 Aug 2023 19:43:05 +0000, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> >
> >> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >>> Try Googling: country in africa that starts with k
> >>
> >> I don't see any failure. Google found a website discussing the issue
> >> immediately. That website is of course wrong, but Google finds
> >> information,
> >> it does not validate it.
> >
> > And Google might be finding it so easily because lots of people
> > have been asking that question. The search completion box showed that
> > as the top suggestion for me, above "country in Africa that speaks
> > Spanish." And I bet it showed me /that/ second because I've been
> > using Google Translate a lot to improve my Spanish reading skill.
> It was the top suggestion for me as well, but the reason may be that
> word has gotten around and people want to see the silly "explanation"
> for themselves.
> --
> Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

Whereas, I put 'name a country in Africa that starts with the letter k'
Into Microsoft Edge, which uses Bing's AI. The answer was:

"There is only one country in Africa that starts with the letter “K” and
that is Kenya 1. Kenya is located in East Africa and its capital city is
Nairobi 1. Is there anything else you would like to know about Kenya
or any other African country"

While ChatGPT cut off their formal training data a couple years back,
it is still incorporating 'facts' inferred from queries into its knowledge base.
This leads to more erroneous answers, in a feedback loop reminiscent of
the Kessler Syndrome.

Pt

Peter Trei <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Whereas, I put 'name a country in Africa that starts with the letter k'
>Into Microsoft Edge, which uses Bing's AI. The answer was:
>
>"There is only one country in Africa that starts with the letter =E2=80=9CK=
>=E2=80=9D and=20
>that is Kenya 1. Kenya is located in East Africa and its capital city is=20
>Nairobi 1. Is there anything else you would like to know about Kenya
>or any other African country"

It should have come up with Kongo and Katanga. Neither one still exist, but
they were countries in Africa that still start with the letter K. There
might be more but those are the only ones I can think of. (Unless you count
"Kingdom of Morocco" which I think is cheating.)
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."