| AI tools 12:16 - Sep 22 with 2812 views | DJR |
I've never used ChatGPT or gone out of my way to use any AI tool.
Having said that, I use Bing to search the internet but on occasions it produces a summary of the subject you are searching at the top of the page which I think is generated by CoPilot.
From what I've found those summaries are not necessarily accurate, so I discount them.
I made a search last night on a fairly uncontroversial topic, and got back a fairly uncontroversial summary response, but I did see the summary was from infowars.
I then clicked on the link to infowars and the article had a pop-up inviting me to donate to Alex Jones.
What's that all about: and I don't mean what is infowars and who is Alex Jones? [Post edited 22 Sep 12:19]
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| AI tools on 12:19 - Sep 22 with 1949 views | J2BLUE |
What are you questioning? Why he wants donations or why it's using infowars as a source?
I really like ChatGPT. Helped me plan some financial stuff for my dad. |  |
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| AI tools on 12:23 - Sep 22 with 1921 views | DJR |
| AI tools on 12:19 - Sep 22 by J2BLUE |
What are you questioning? Why he wants donations or why it's using infowars as a source?
I really like ChatGPT. Helped me plan some financial stuff for my dad. |
I thought it was obvious but to spell it out, why is CoPilot giving infowars top billing, and including a link to inforwars, which in turn asks you to donate to someone who runs the site and I believe has said that certain school shootings didn't take place? [Post edited 22 Sep 12:26]
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| AI tools on 12:28 - Sep 22 with 1864 views | J2BLUE |
| AI tools on 12:23 - Sep 22 by DJR |
I thought it was obvious but to spell it out, why is CoPilot giving infowars top billing, and including a link to inforwars, which in turn asks you to donate to someone who runs the site and I believe has said that certain school shootings didn't take place? [Post edited 22 Sep 12:26]
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The donation bit probably has no link to CoPilot. It probably comes up on every page on there.
Why it's using that as a source is more worrying and needs to be looked at. He has denied all sorts of things and pretends to believe in all sorts of crazy conspiracies to continue to con his listeners and sell his magic potions. | |
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| AI tools on 12:32 - Sep 22 with 1817 views | DanTheMan |
What I imagine Co-Pilot is doing is summarising the first X results that are returned by the search. The models themselves are not trained with live data.
This would then lead me to believe that, for whatever you searched for, Infowars was one of the top results. This itself could be for several reasons, but would essentially boil down to good SEO. |  |
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| AI tools on 12:34 - Sep 22 with 1804 views | DJR |
| AI tools on 12:28 - Sep 22 by J2BLUE |
The donation bit probably has no link to CoPilot. It probably comes up on every page on there.
Why it's using that as a source is more worrying and needs to be looked at. He has denied all sorts of things and pretends to believe in all sorts of crazy conspiracies to continue to con his listeners and sell his magic potions. |
Of course the donation bit has no link to CoPilot. That's not really my point but given what you say in the second paragraph, do you not think that it is concerning that CoPilot puts in the most prominent position on its search results information from infowars and a link to its website, which is run by a person such as your describe? | | | |
| AI tools on 12:38 - Sep 22 with 1776 views | Guthrum |
The chief thing about AI (as with ordinary search engines) is asking the right question and doing it with precision. Plus cross-checking your results. It has to be kept on a fairly tight leash, otherwise it can wander off in odd directions - or occasionally imagine stuff to fill the gaps if it can't find real answers. |  |
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| AI tools on 12:43 - Sep 22 with 1746 views | Guthrum |
| AI tools on 12:34 - Sep 22 by DJR |
Of course the donation bit has no link to CoPilot. That's not really my point but given what you say in the second paragraph, do you not think that it is concerning that CoPilot puts in the most prominent position on its search results information from infowars and a link to its website, which is run by a person such as your describe? |
Co-Pilot doesn't know what InfoWars is, other than being a source of information out on the Web. It can't make value judgements like that, without having been taught to. Which will be individual to the user.
There are, after all, a cohort of people who think the wibblings of Jones are valid. Thus he cannot be globally excluded from a general search tool. | |
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| AI tools on 12:44 - Sep 22 with 1731 views | DJR |
| AI tools on 12:32 - Sep 22 by DanTheMan |
What I imagine Co-Pilot is doing is summarising the first X results that are returned by the search. The models themselves are not trained with live data.
This would then lead me to believe that, for whatever you searched for, Infowars was one of the top results. This itself could be for several reasons, but would essentially boil down to good SEO. |
By X do you mean a number?
The fact though is that infowars was only in the summary at the top (which appears in blue), and not in the usual links on the the first page of the search: you might have to use Bing (which not many do) to see what I mean.
You'll have to explain what SEO means.
I might add that I have never before searched the internet and had a link to infowars, and it is troubling to me that infowars is thought to be a reliable source.
From the responses so far, people seem much more relaxed about these things than me, but with misinformation on the rise, I am not convinced. [Post edited 22 Sep 12:46]
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| AI tools on 12:45 - Sep 22 with 1717 views | J2BLUE |
| AI tools on 12:34 - Sep 22 by DJR |
Of course the donation bit has no link to CoPilot. That's not really my point but given what you say in the second paragraph, do you not think that it is concerning that CoPilot puts in the most prominent position on its search results information from infowars and a link to its website, which is run by a person such as your describe? |
Yes, hence saying it was worrying and needs to be looked at | |
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| AI tools on 12:47 - Sep 22 with 1706 views | DJR |
| AI tools on 12:45 - Sep 22 by J2BLUE |
Yes, hence saying it was worrying and needs to be looked at |
Apologies, I misread you response. | | | |
| AI tools on 12:49 - Sep 22 with 1674 views | J2BLUE |
| AI tools on 12:47 - Sep 22 by DJR |
Apologies, I misread you response. |
You would hope they will look at this and filter out results from the likes of infowars. Can't see Musk's AI tool doing that though.
Maybe there will be different political leanings of AI and we'll all use the one that keeps us in our echo chamber. Another worrying thought. | |
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| AI tools on 12:49 - Sep 22 with 1672 views | DJR |
| AI tools on 12:43 - Sep 22 by Guthrum |
Co-Pilot doesn't know what InfoWars is, other than being a source of information out on the Web. It can't make value judgements like that, without having been taught to. Which will be individual to the user.
There are, after all, a cohort of people who think the wibblings of Jones are valid. Thus he cannot be globally excluded from a general search tool. |
That to me sounds rather worrying if people are relying on what AI produces. | | | |
| AI tools on 12:52 - Sep 22 with 1649 views | DJR |
| AI tools on 12:49 - Sep 22 by J2BLUE |
You would hope they will look at this and filter out results from the likes of infowars. Can't see Musk's AI tool doing that though.
Maybe there will be different political leanings of AI and we'll all use the one that keeps us in our echo chamber. Another worrying thought. |
Misinformation or echo chamber is why I'd prefer to avoid AI and do my own research, but I can see it is good for your dad's affairs. | | | |
| AI tools on 12:55 - Sep 22 with 1622 views | DJR |
| AI tools on 12:38 - Sep 22 by Guthrum |
The chief thing about AI (as with ordinary search engines) is asking the right question and doing it with precision. Plus cross-checking your results. It has to be kept on a fairly tight leash, otherwise it can wander off in odd directions - or occasionally imagine stuff to fill the gaps if it can't find real answers. |
I don't use internet search engines in the way that people appear to use AI to answer questions, so I am not sure that precision comes into it given most of my searches consist of one or two words. | | | |
| AI tools on 12:58 - Sep 22 with 1597 views | giant_stow |
| AI tools on 12:44 - Sep 22 by DJR |
By X do you mean a number?
The fact though is that infowars was only in the summary at the top (which appears in blue), and not in the usual links on the the first page of the search: you might have to use Bing (which not many do) to see what I mean.
You'll have to explain what SEO means.
I might add that I have never before searched the internet and had a link to infowars, and it is troubling to me that infowars is thought to be a reliable source.
From the responses so far, people seem much more relaxed about these things than me, but with misinformation on the rise, I am not convinced. [Post edited 22 Sep 12:46]
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SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, with the aim being to get your site as high up the google search results (or these days AI tool answers) as possible.
Arguably, its an industry in crisis, because of all the AI tools just nicking content off sites, without sending users there. |  |
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| AI tools on 13:00 - Sep 22 with 1577 views | WeWereZombies |
| AI tools on 12:49 - Sep 22 by DJR |
That to me sounds rather worrying if people are relying on what AI produces. |
Was having this discussion in person, with real people, yesterday morning. What needs to happen is for most to realise (and some already do) that AI, ChatGPT and so on are not sentient (at least nowhere near as sentient as human brains are) and will only produce answers that they can find from the data that they have available, and within the limitations of their own processing power. Take the information that they give you and see how its slots into what you already know, but do not trust it implicitly. |  |
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| AI tools on 13:00 - Sep 22 with 1577 views | Guthrum |
| AI tools on 12:49 - Sep 22 by DJR |
That to me sounds rather worrying if people are relying on what AI produces. |
People are handing over too much responsibility to a system. It's very "clever" - in the sense of mental agility, memory and processing power - but it has no innate morality, beyond whatever selectiveness is programmed into it from the start (e.g. actual illegal behaviour) and the preferences learnt from the individual user.
One wouldn't leave even the most precocious child to develop its own moral and behavioural framework. Similarly, it is not wise to use a chainsaw without protective gear.
But users are, I think, often overawed by the idea of AI, mistaking its analytic power for a fully-rounded intelligence. Sci-fi may not have helped in that regard. But it is currently little more than Google on steroids and requires a lot of managing. | |
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| AI tools on 13:04 - Sep 22 with 1550 views | DanTheMan |
| AI tools on 12:44 - Sep 22 by DJR |
By X do you mean a number?
The fact though is that infowars was only in the summary at the top (which appears in blue), and not in the usual links on the the first page of the search: you might have to use Bing (which not many do) to see what I mean.
You'll have to explain what SEO means.
I might add that I have never before searched the internet and had a link to infowars, and it is troubling to me that infowars is thought to be a reliable source.
From the responses so far, people seem much more relaxed about these things than me, but with misinformation on the rise, I am not convinced. [Post edited 22 Sep 12:46]
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> By X do you mean a number?
Yes
> The fact though is that infowars was only in the summary at the top (which appears in blue), and not in the usual links on the the first page of the search: you might have to use Bing (which not many do) to see what I mean.
Do you have what you searched? I'd be interested to see the
> From the responses so far, people seem much more relaxed about these things than me, but with misinformation on the rise, I am not convinced.
In which case, that would be weird if it's generating a summary by something that is not even listed in the results. As to why it's doing that, it would be hard to guess without looking at what the prompt being used is to generate the summary which is hidden from you.
> You'll have to explain what SEO means.
Very big topic, but it stands for "Seach Engine Optimisation", basically it's things you do to websites so they come higher up in the search engine results.
I'd say it's certainly worrying that the summary it is giving you is using such a bad source but it's always important to understand why it is doing what it is doing, albeit that may be hard to determine. | |
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| AI tools on 13:08 - Sep 22 with 1515 views | Guthrum |
| AI tools on 12:55 - Sep 22 by DJR |
I don't use internet search engines in the way that people appear to use AI to answer questions, so I am not sure that precision comes into it given most of my searches consist of one or two words. |
That's fine if you only need broad-brush answers. But it will occasionally, quite by accident, trawl up from the depths something you really didn't want to see.
The only way to do that is by removing the stuff from the internet. Which, with InfoWars, people have tried, but been blocked. Tho censorship can cut both ways, so has to be handled with caution. | |
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| AI tools on 13:14 - Sep 22 with 1449 views | Meadowlark |
My own limited use of Copilot and Chat GPT has often caused me to ignore the first or even second response and ask it to try again, if necessary excluding answers I'm not happy with for whatever reason. A while back I asked "are you sure?" to an answer it gave. It said, "You are right to doubt my answer, let me try again!" or something like that.  |  | | |
| AI tools on 13:17 - Sep 22 with 1428 views | Guthrum |
| AI tools on 13:00 - Sep 22 by WeWereZombies |
Was having this discussion in person, with real people, yesterday morning. What needs to happen is for most to realise (and some already do) that AI, ChatGPT and so on are not sentient (at least nowhere near as sentient as human brains are) and will only produce answers that they can find from the data that they have available, and within the limitations of their own processing power. Take the information that they give you and see how its slots into what you already know, but do not trust it implicitly. |
Indeed. I've had some conversations with a couple of quite experienced users of ChatGPT. Much of what they say is about asking the right questions, training the system, then filtering and checking the results. It's labour-saving, but not a passive process. | |
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| AI tools on 13:24 - Sep 22 with 1399 views | DanTheMan |
| AI tools on 13:14 - Sep 22 by Meadowlark |
My own limited use of Copilot and Chat GPT has often caused me to ignore the first or even second response and ask it to try again, if necessary excluding answers I'm not happy with for whatever reason. A while back I asked "are you sure?" to an answer it gave. It said, "You are right to doubt my answer, let me try again!" or something like that. |
This is actually something to worry about with so many people using these things as a search engine (or using the summaries)
The "hallucinations", also known in the real world as "being wrong", are not easy to see when you're not a subject matter expert. And because it does not know how to say "I don't know" and will instead just make things up, it's very easy for people to use these tools as if they are all-knowing gods instead of things that fail and fail often. | |
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| AI tools on 13:36 - Sep 22 with 1322 views | DJR |
| AI tools on 13:04 - Sep 22 by DanTheMan |
> By X do you mean a number?
Yes
> The fact though is that infowars was only in the summary at the top (which appears in blue), and not in the usual links on the the first page of the search: you might have to use Bing (which not many do) to see what I mean.
Do you have what you searched? I'd be interested to see the
> From the responses so far, people seem much more relaxed about these things than me, but with misinformation on the rise, I am not convinced.
In which case, that would be weird if it's generating a summary by something that is not even listed in the results. As to why it's doing that, it would be hard to guess without looking at what the prompt being used is to generate the summary which is hidden from you.
> You'll have to explain what SEO means.
Very big topic, but it stands for "Seach Engine Optimisation", basically it's things you do to websites so they come higher up in the search engine results.
I'd say it's certainly worrying that the summary it is giving you is using such a bad source but it's always important to understand why it is doing what it is doing, albeit that may be hard to determine. |
Many thanks for a very full and helpful answer.
Sadly, I don't keep my browsing history, and approaching receipt of my state pension can't even remember what the topic was I searched, let alone the search term, given it wasn't that controversial an area. [Post edited 22 Sep 13:39]
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| AI tools on 13:38 - Sep 22 with 1309 views | DJR |
| AI tools on 13:08 - Sep 22 by Guthrum |
That's fine if you only need broad-brush answers. But it will occasionally, quite by accident, trawl up from the depths something you really didn't want to see.
The only way to do that is by removing the stuff from the internet. Which, with InfoWars, people have tried, but been blocked. Tho censorship can cut both ways, so has to be handled with caution. |
Yes, there clearly are issues with censorship. | | | |
| AI tools on 13:46 - Sep 22 with 1255 views | Meadowlark |
| AI tools on 13:24 - Sep 22 by DanTheMan |
This is actually something to worry about with so many people using these things as a search engine (or using the summaries)
The "hallucinations", also known in the real world as "being wrong", are not easy to see when you're not a subject matter expert. And because it does not know how to say "I don't know" and will instead just make things up, it's very easy for people to use these tools as if they are all-knowing gods instead of things that fail and fail often. |
Indeed.
My "wrong" response was to a technical matter and truth be told I was being lazy and asking AI to provide a quick answer to something I could probably have figured out for myself pretty quickly. That's why I questioned the answer.
If you're relying on AI to provide an accurate answer to something very important (ie health, finances, etc) that you have no knowledge of whatsoever I suggest you seek many different opinions and treat the answers with extreme caution.
"A tool is only as good as the hand that wields it" | | | |
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