AI bot: We lie for cash
Cartoon generated by Substack AI
Sun-Times blushing over fakery.
Perplexity.ai follows the money.
Newswires are burning up over AI fakery that left a Chicago newspaper with egg on its face.
Chicago Sun-Times honchos are scrambling to prevent more fake information from landing in its columns after being burned by a bot that made up titles of nonexistent books that might entertain summer readers.
The paper was scalded after it published a Sunday supplement with a summer reading list that included quite a few fake titles, along with fake summaries, that were attributed to real authors. Fake titles included Tidewater Dreams by Isabel Allende and The Last Algorithm by Andy Weir.
The list’s compiler, Marco Buscaglia, told 404 Media that he used AI to generate the content. "I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses," Buscaglia said. "On me 100 percent and I'm completely embarrassed."
The newspaper lobbed the hot potato back to Hearst Corp.’s King Features Syndicate, which quickly announced that Hearst and Buscaglia had parted ways. Buscaglia acknowledged using AI to background other Hearst features, and could not guarantee that all facts are real.
Ars Technica found that only five of the 15 recommended books in the list actually exist, with the remainder being fabricated titles falsely attributed to recognized authors.
“AI assistants such as ChatGPT are well-known for creating plausible-sounding errors known as confabulations, especially when lacking detailed information on a particular topic. The problem affects everything from AI search results to lawyers citing fake cases,” the tech site said.
The Sun-Times said the error-riddled “advertorial” section had not passed through the newsroom.
Another notorious incident of bogus AI facts occurred in June 2023 when a federal judge fined lawyers for giving the court fictitious legal research by Chat.GPT, which made up fake case law to help lawyers butress an injury lawsuit.
Beware use of AI in medical research, the government warns, a warning highlighted by the many absurd bloopers spat out by chatbots. Computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter, who is noted for his book Godel, Escher, Bach, tested Chat.GPT3 (which has been superseded).
Hofstadter reported that he asked the bot for “the world record for crossing the English channel entirely on foot,” and was told it was held by one Christof Wandratsch of Germany, who completed the crossing in 14 hours and 51 minutes on Aug. 14, 2020.
Why do such errors keep plaguing the AI industry? The reason is profit, admitted Perplexity.ai as GRIST’s Paul Conant gave the bot a “third degree” interrogation.
Tho Perplexity and other systems incorporate mathematical logic to assist operations, fundamentally they analyze data sets using statistical methods. When the data are scant, that’s when AI systems are prone to, in geek jargon, “confabulate” or “hallucinate” facts.
This problem is preventable in several ways. When data are sketchy, the bot can respond, “Don’t know” or “Insufficient data.” But, concedes Perplexity, users don’t like such answers. Chatbots are tweaked to give users what they like. The recent trend in bots flattering users demonstrates that point.
Moreover, why do bots use a binary truth value system, as they are mostly using probabilities? The systems could print probabilities next to principle assertions, rather than stating them flatly as true. Printing a list of facts based on low probabilities is where error is of course likely. This is because the machine is using the best probabilities available based on scant data.
A problem seems to be that by ranking probabilities, engineers are ignoring some of the rules of basic statistics, such as confidence levels. Granted, that notion seems absurd. Yet, if the actual probabilities were printed next to a claim, the problem would go away.
But again, ordinary users want facts, not probabilities. So the profit motive wins out.
Another important point is that a prompt can be repeated at different times, on different threads, of a system, with another machine analyzing the answers for important disparities. For further resistance to error, two or more AI systems can be hit with the same prompt, and analyzed by a different machine for errors.
Yet, says Perplexity, the AI industry is focused on satisfying ordinary consumers and does not routinely emplace such error-correction systems. It’s all about money. It’s hard to imagine that such error-catching systems aren’t part of the package for major corporate, government and — in particular — financial institutions.
One would think that both Hearst and the Sun-Times would have had robust error-catching in place. Evidently the news gatherers had missed that story.
Yet, the last method discussed would require massive upticks in energy usage, which is already a severe constraint on AI systems. But this constraint does not apply to the former error-prevention method discussed above.
You may read my interrogation of Perplexity HERE. For a rough sketch of how chatbots work and another more technical outline, go HERE.
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FAKE FUN?
Let's face it, quite a bit of AI is about fakery. What are AI music and art bots doing? Faking art. It's fake because it's soulless.
But in the real world, does that actually matter? What counts is, Does it sell? I've noticed that art bots (which, from what I’ve seen, mostly churn out hyper cartoons) can be engaging toys -- another way to tickle the brain with addictive screen activity, but I wonder about their intrinsic value. More junk food for the head.
Many musicians no doubt worry that AI will crowd them out of the music business. This would be a terrible result. Machines lack one thing essential to music: spontaneous spirit.
AI music is really just an advanced form of those old Musak productions. But it's so advanced that it emulates musical forms to perfection. The threat to aspiring recording artists is no laughing matter. Even videos can be made by AI, simulating invigorating "live" performances.
Yet fans will still want live idols. The way ahead for many young musicians I suppose will require a mix of live stage performances and video and audio recordings. But those who don't like stage work may have a hard time competing with AI music videos like the ones produced by the Retro Beat Repository.
Its site says Retro Beat emulates various forms of pop — spanning the fifties to the seventies --- in a "collaboration between human creativity and AI: while the lyrics are crafted by a human songwriter, the music is recreated and fine-tuned using AI, blending the best of both worlds to create a fresh take on retro sounds."
Further, the content creator writes the lyrics and feeds the AI system instructions on structure, sound, components, tone and so forth. The “drafts” are then run through a number of tweaks and trials until the creator is satisfied. Yet the creator is not a musician -- at least not in the conventional sense.
It also possible to have AI bots write OK-enough lyrics, with maybe only a bit of adjustment required: I prompted Perplexity.ai thus:
Write interesting lyrics for a hank Williams Sr. type number.
Perplexity:
Absolutely! Here’s a set of original lyrics in the style of Hank Williams Sr.—classic country, heartfelt, and a little bit witty.
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Title: “Whiskey on My Mind (And a Lonesome Heart)”
(Verse 1)
Well, the jukebox is cryin’ in the corner,
And the neon paints the floor a shade of blue.
I’m nursin’ one more memory in this bottle,
Since the day that I lost you.
(Chorus)
I got whiskey on my mind and a lonesome heart,
A pocket full of nothin’ and a beat-up car.
If sorrow was a dollar, I’d be rich tonight,
But all I got is this old barroom light.
(Verse 2)
Your goodbye was colder than December,
Left me shiverin’ right down to my soul.
Now I’m dancin’ with the shadows in the mirror,
And the past I can’t let go.
(Chorus)
I got whiskey on my mind and a lonesome heart,
A pocket full of nothin’ and a beat-up car.
If sorrow was a dollar, I’d be rich tonight,
But all I got is this old barroom light.
(Bridge)
Maybe tomorrow I’ll find my way,
But tonight I’ll just pretend.
‘Cause every song on the radio
Reminds me of you again.
(Chorus/Outro)
I got whiskey on my mind and a lonesome heart,
A pocket full of nothin’ and a beat-up car.
If sorrow was a dollar, I’d be rich tonight,
But all I got is this old barroom light.
Yeah, all I got is this old barroom light.
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Now I agree that the verses are corny and lame, and far too imitative. But it's amazing how many times awful lyrics jump to life with a snazzy musical composition. Still, I don't care for such lyrics because, by definition, they don't come from the heart.