• @[email protected]
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    313 months ago

    Ahh, an attempt at, let’s call it, a “Paul Wellstone” press event. And like Wellstone’s attempt, I’m very glad it failed and I hope people face at least some fines and Trump faces public backlash for it.

    ***For those that are too young or have never heard of it. Paul Wellstone DFL senator from Minnesota tried to hold a political rally at The Wall, Vietnam war memorial. He was widely panned and condemned for his total tone deafness by not only the opposition, but his own party and constituents. It almost cost him his re-election. But political memories being what they are, was swept under the rug for his advantage.

    • @WraithGear
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      3 months ago

      I am trying to find this event. Its the first time chat gpt outright called me a liar. I see his memorial service which was for all those who died in a plane crash in 2002 was used by Walter Mondale to use Paul’s death as a spring board for his election bid… was there some other event you are referring to?

      • @[email protected]
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        303 months ago

        Maybe use a search engine instead of an LLM? It’s pretty easy to find. On a sidenote, ChatGPT and similar LLMs are known to be absolutely unreliable and error prone. Please do yourself a favor and don’t rely on anything an LLM tells you.

        • @WraithGear
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          3 months ago

          That’s what i did. I looked it up and did not find what i was looking for. Closest thing i found was the event in 2002 which was eerily close to the event you mentioned, but i could not find what you said. So i asked you for more information. Jees! You snapped back at me like a stack overflow user.

          • @[email protected]
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            3 months ago

            I’m not the original commenter. And I didn’t want to offend you, just wanted give some friendly advice, because it irks me how many people seem to use chatGPT for fact finding. Chill

            Edit: If you look for “Paul Wellstone” and “Vietnam War Memorial” you’ll find what the OC was on about.

            https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-oct-26-na-wellstone26-story.html “Wellstone also staged a news conference in front of the Vietnam War Memorial on the National Mall, drawing the ire of many veteran groups. Wellstone later said the event was a mistake.”

            Just an example of many

            • Doom
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              163 months ago

              I do not understand why people ask chatgpt for factual information

              • @WraithGear
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                -163 months ago

                The same reason people use google to look something up instead of going to the library

                • @[email protected]
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                  173 months ago

                  Google returns sources that you can evaluate for accuracy.

                  Chatgpt just says things.

                  Every output of chatgpt should end with “source: just trust me bro”.

                  • @WraithGear
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                    3 months ago

                    Chat gpt said things you can evaluate, which i did by googling it. And when i could not find the event in question, i went back into Lemmy and asked for more information. So tell me where i err’d? Was it not taking the posters word on it? Or trying to get context in the first place?

                  • @WraithGear
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                    3 months ago

                    You can retrieve sources from chat gpt. And that is besides the point that i didn’t simply rely on gpt. Even without prompting, i did my own digging on google, found his wiki page looked up articles about Paul and filming at a memorial and only found the incident from 2002. Thats two more paths to sources that failed me.

                    Chat gpt is a tool that is useful if used right, but even i did not take its word for it.

                  • @WraithGear
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                    3 months ago

                    Yep, no doubt. I have used chat gpt extensibly and have found it hallucinating on my own questions. It was not the case when it referred to the 2002 event, but i know it does that. It is a tool like google. And google puts pseudoscience and conspiracy theories at the top of the list sometimes too when trying to fact find. You have to know the limitations of what it is capable of. Case in point, when i asked about this event, i didn’t assume gpt answer was correct, google gave links exclusively to coverage of the the 2002 event, completely ignoring the Vietnam portion of my query. And i still returned to ask the poster for more info to get context. I don’t know what more people could have wanted from me.

            • @WraithGear
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              3 months ago

              “Wellstone also staged a news conference in front of the Vietnam War Memorial on the National Mall, drawing the ire of many veteran groups. Wellstone later said the event was a mistake.”

              Fair enough, though editing the comment made it difficult to realize you did provide what i asked for. I never called any one a lier. Just that when i went to chat gpt for context to what the other said it flat out told me it didn’t happen, which is uncharacteristic of chat gpt sycophantic tendencies. Usually talking a passive voice, or assuming i am making up a scenario and rolling with it. So i did google it and found that he was not considered controversial, and if the wiki mentioned it, it was only as a foot note.

              Everything i looked up pointed to the 2002 incident. Not sure why i am being dog piled here.

              Either way it seems odd to reference this as a Paul Wellstone ‘event’

          • @[email protected]
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            23 months ago

            sidenote

            You snapped back at me like a stack overflow use

            His spelling suggests he’s more Reddit.

            • @WraithGear
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              3 months ago

              I mean i was on reddit before the api thing, so ehh. Maybe i interpreted it harsher then it was meant.

      • @[email protected]
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        33 months ago

        His funeral was a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Another poor look for the state of Minnesota DFL. There seems to be some washing of his memory apparently. It was a big deal and made national news at the time. Perhaps search for news articles from papers like the Washington Post or New York Times. Perhaps the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I remember it well because I’m old enough to have been there. It kind of made me question my voting for him. Still, I voted for him again and would have again when he was killed - despite his campaign promise of only being a one term senator. (He was pro term limits until it was HIS term also)

        • @WraithGear
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          3 months ago

          Ah thank you! It struck me that something abhorrent that trump has done could be referred to some other event with another politician, and yet not be widely known. I had to look it up. Though with trump being a sewage house spewing events like this out on the regular, no individual event will get the scorn it deserves. You may be on to something about the white washing thing though. Like i said, chat gpt isn’t even as forceful in denouncing flat earth. Not sure what’s up with that. His wiki also is missing any mention, and doesn’t even have a controversy section most politicians have.

          • @[email protected]
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            23 months ago

            To be fair to Wellstone, he did apologize and learned from his mistake and go on to becoming a fine senator for Minnesota and the rest of the nation.

      • rowdyrockets
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        3 months ago

        While I agree with what others are saying about not using LLMs for fact checking. It is a useful tool to gain context before gathering more research, so I think the downvotes are a bit harsh. I’d recommend using a different LLM - GPT4o had no issues providing me with some context.

        • @WraithGear
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          3 months ago

          I think that the issue was how i was asking for context on Paul Wellstone using the Vietnam memorial. Here was the response i initially received:

          “Wellstone did not attempt to film or hold a political event at the Vietnam War Memorial. The controversy you’re thinking of might be related to the backlash following his 2002 memorial service, where the event was criticized by some for taking on a political tone.

          Wellstone himself was known for his deep respect for veterans and did not engage in actions like filming political content at war memorials. The Vietnam War Memorial is a solemn site, and there hasn’t been any documented attempt by Wellstone to use it for political purposes.

          If there’s something specific you’d like to discuss or clarify about this, please let me know!”

          As you can see it shut down the thought in a manner gpt does not do lightly. So i googled, and found his wikipedia page, and a lite skim painted him as uncontroversial. And i got a lot of google hits on the 2002 plane crash memorial being co-opted for political gains. So i returned here for more context.

      • @warbond
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        13 months ago

        I don’t get the LLM hate. Reminiscent of the Wikipedia and general Internet hate before it, I think. It has its uses, especially in terms of general knowledge and brainstorming, but as any regular Internet user knows, you don’t just believe the first thing you read.

        Here’s a fun search challenge that stumped my normal methods:

        Back in the 90s Star Trek actor Michael Dorn hosted a show where he was introducing… Something. I don’t know if it was a one-off or a weekly thing, but he introduced himself by saying, “Hi, I’m Michael Dorn,” in his deep-ass voice, then he went on to talk about whatever he was introducing. The rest is a mystery to me, I just don’t remember it well enough, but for whatever reason I remember that one line clear as day. But what the hell show was it and what was he introducing?