Oof

@richpuchalsky@mastodon.social AIs write bad books (and texts, etc.) -- incoherent mash-ups of existing human works, and eventually worse mash-ups of human and AI works. But how does the existence of a bad book destroy knowledge? The good books still exist. The problem in my view is less bad AI books, and more bad indexes and catalogs, (i.e. search pages made by foolish search engine corporations), and the ignorant public's very much misplaced trust in those bad indexes.

@whybird@aus.social @bnystrom@androiddev.social @shanselman@hachyderm.io Quotation marks for accuracy: ...a "cofounder" of Tesla... And never, (unless quoting misinformation): ...a cofounder of Tesla...

@jef @xinit @cstross @kottke A five minute boot sounds atypical. Perhaps the Xfinity box had just upgraded its firmware.

@tedmielczarek@mastodon.social @richpuchalsky@mastodon.social Bad books have always been a majority. Remedies include: Bibliographies from reputable sources. Critics who sift through new and old works and offer considered opinions. A cautious respect for bad ideas, which when applied instruct by negative example. Recommendations from trusted sources, whether friends, rivals, authors modern or ancient, and teachers. Stop using indexes that direct readers to slop.

@DerPumu@mstdn.games @richpuchalsky@mastodon.social To uncritically cite a faulty source directly or by proxy is bovine scholarship. Give it less attention. What's needed are scholars who critically cite faulty sources to corral them. (The opening chapters of Gilbert's 'On the Lodestone' offer an unrelenting rundown of centuries of careless pseudo scholarship on magnets, whose authors comprise a kind pre-enlightenment artificial intelligence endlessly repeating and embroidering their own output.)

@DerPumu@mstdn.games @richpuchalsky@mastodon.social A scholar checks sources recursively when seeking the reason for some inconsistency or contradiction.  First test the conclusion; if it is false or imperfect, only then test the most likely sources of error. Rooting out entrenched errors may require a serious amount of labor.  (William Gilbert needed decades.)  Some medical misunderstandings can take lifetimes to resolve.   But scholars are in this sense never working alone.

@brainwane@social.coop Those who liked the dark humor of Corman's 1960 Little Shop of Horrors should check out Satrapi's The Voices.