Readers’ comments
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The internet is rubbish
Jon Honeyball’s comments at the end of One Last Thing (see issue 366, p130) definitely resonated with me. I have always assumed that 90% of internet information is rubbish (and the resultant training data LOL) and that most people on forums usually post the first thing that comes into their heads without checking anything.
One thing that has changed with Transformer-based AIs is that up to a few years back I could tell fake videos and game screenshots easily – but now I think I may as well hang up my boots as the deluge of AI content drowns everything else out. It has at least made me log out of some of these sites and stay away.
The human condition means that despite telling myself every day for decades not to believe in this rubbish. I still sometimes gullibly sit there taking it in. Face it: there’s no way to tell fact from fiction with most of the deluge of information. Meanwhile, I see other people’s comments saying this unverified hot air is an alternative to the mainstream press. The BBC might be the best of a bad bunch but at least it can be held accountable for what it publishes.