Are You OK, Google AI? Do You Need A Policeman Or A Grownup? [View all]

[erronis]

https://www.wonkette.com/p/are-you-ok-google-ai-do-you-need
Doktor Zoom

You'll never guess what Wonkette did now!

Sort of humorous, in a Freddie Krueger type of way.

Yr Wonkette got an object lesson yesterday — as if we needed one — in why AI search results should be treated with skepticism set on fire. While Robyn was working on her story on the Trump administration’s ugly (and like so many administration ideas, almost certainly illegal) proposal to shift US refugee policy to helping out white people who are “oppressed” for being vile racists, she wanted to quickly review previous Wonkette stories on refugee policy. So she typed “Wonkette refugees” into Google, and while it did cough up Wonkette stories, those valid results were preceded by an AI generated “overview” that was completely insane. She posted it to the Wonkette Sekrit Chat Cave with the comment, “Um. I don't think that any of this happened?”

In late 2024, the term “Wonkette refugees” emerged on social media to describe a group of writers and readers who left the political blog Wonkette following a controversy involving its owner, Rebecca Schoenkopf. This controversy centered on her behavior, which included firing several editors and writing a post critical of her former staff.

Key events leading to the exodus

• Owner’s post: On December 22, 2024, Schoenkopf published a post on Wonkette that was widely criticized for being a “hit piece” against former staffers. The article reportedly mocked and disparaged former contributors and included what many felt was a humiliating attack on a former intern.

• Criticism from readers and former staff: The post sparked significant backlash, with many readers and former writers condemning the owner’s behavior as cruel, unprofessional, and “mean-spirited”.

• Mass departure: In response, several writers resigned and numerous readers began to abandon the blog. This led to the creation of the term “Wonkette refugees” to describe those who were looking for a new online community.

• Search for new platforms: The “refugees” began migrating to other platforms, including the independent blog Your Dad’s Wonkette and various social media groups. The new blog was established by a group of former Wonkette editors and writers and offered a new home for the disaffected community.

Nope, none of us remembered any of that, either, because the entire string of events was hallucinated by Google’s algorithm. There was no mass exodus of writers and editors, and December 22 was a Sunday, so Rebecca wouldn’t have written anything that Google’s large language model could have even misinterpreted as a hit piece about people who are still mostly here. And sadly, “Your Dad’s Wonkette” also doesn’t exist, though maybe we should register the domain just to be safe.

. . .