The AI-generated false headline was promoted by X in its official trending news section.

A shocking story was promoted on the “front page” or main feed of Elon Musk’s X on Thursday:

“Iran Strikes Tel Aviv with Heavy Missiles,” read the headline.

This would certainly be a worrying world news development. Earlier that week, Israel had conducted an airstrike on Iran’s embassy in Syria, killing two generals as well as other officers. Retaliation from Iran seemed like a plausible occurrence.

But, there was one major problem: Iran did not attack Israel. The headline was fake.

Even more concerning, the fake headline was apparently generated by X’s own official AI chatbot, Grok, and then promoted by X’s trending news product, Explore, on the very first day of an updated version of the feature.

  • @[email protected]English
    6•8 months ago

    but it is also literally and technologically impossible for that to spontaneously coelesce into reason/logic/sentience

    Yeah, see, one very popular modern religion (without official status or need for one to explicitly identify with id, but really influential) is exactly about “a wonderful invention” spontaneously emerging in the hands of some “genius” who “thinks differently”.

    Most people put this idea far above reaching your goal after making myriad of small steps, not skipping a single one.

    They also want a magic wand.

    The fans of “AI” today are deep inside simply luddites. They want some new magic to emerge to destroy the magic they fear.

    • JackGreenEarthEnglish
      -8•8 months ago

      Lol, the AI haters are luddites, not the AI supporters. AI is the present and future, and just because it isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s not good enough for many things. And it will continue to get better, most likely.

      • @[email protected]English
        6•8 months ago

        You should try and understand that it’s not magic, it’s a very specific set of actions aimed at a very specific result with very specific area of application. Every part of it is clear. There’s no uncharted area where we don’t know at all what happens. Engineering doesn’t work like that anywhere except action movies.

        By the same logic as that “it isn’t perfect” a plane made of grass by cargo cult members can suddenly turn into a real aircraft.

        And it won’t magically become something above it, if that’s what you mean by “get better”.

        For the same reason we still don’t have a computer virus which developed conscience, and we won’t.

        And if you think otherwise then you are what I described.