This week, I relearned a very valuable lesson: Don’t trust A.I. (artificial intelligence)! I have already read numerous RV articles “written” by A.I. (not on RVtravel.com) and knew that when it said to find a grassy hill to dump RV black water tanks, it was wrong, wrong, wrong! However, I immediately forgot that lesson this week.
I am prone to skin cancer. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your combination of fair-skinned Irish and English heritage. I am very used to checkups, biopsies, and the occasional basal cell carcinoma that is dug out without incident.
This week, however, the lab report showed up in my chart long before the doctor’s office call. It did not say benign or basal cell anything. It was reported in a whole new vernacular.
So, like any digitally proficient person, I Googled it, starting with “What does this mean?”
Well, A.I. said I had the worst type of melanoma cancer, and I was looking at serious surgery, chemotherapy, and potential death.
So that kind of altered our future plans for traveling, house renovations, and moving. It was late Friday afternoon. I emailed the doctor’s office, called, and left a message, hoping to get a report from them before the weekend.
Got the call back with the explanation that all was fine. I was fine, my hand was fine, my life was fine. The report just said I had a blue mole connected to a freckle.
Lesson relearned.
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RVT1228
My take on AI is that it searches web sites for salient information to summarize and answer your question. As more web sites themselves contain AI generated or poorly researched data, AI accuracy gets worse and then who knows what unverifiable data sources might be used instead. AI output will be beautifully composed garbage. (**Just making stuff up here – I’m no expert)
I always go to the links the AI engine says it used to verify whether I think it’s a trusted data source. Or I ignore the AI answer and go directly to the other search engine web site results.
This Information Age has become a somewhat slippery slope.
You understand AI perfectly! 🙂
Do not trust AI for anything. In my opinion AI should be illegal or at least not allowed on any search website.
possibly the downfall of this country.
I hear what you are saying. Unfortunately it is mostly the “consumer focused” AI that is out of control.
I worked for a large software tech/mainframe computer manufacturer that focused on commercial solutions. In conjunction with a world reknown research hospital, they developed an AI system to help Oncologists more quickly identify cancer treatments with the best probability of success based on actual historical individual patient genomes and results. Oncologists always made final decisions and input results back into the system so it “learned.” Tools like this can be very valuable & life saving.
AI are just computer programs written by computer programmers. You are never certain what their education was or what their “agenda” is. As a Software Engineer, I never trust someone else’s computer program unless I know how they wrote it and verified it. No one should ever trust AI. By the way, AI has been around since the 1970’s. It is that computers have become more powerful and have a lot more memory and quite cheap. During the 1970’s-1990’s, most people could not afford computers or access to computers. Now any person (even a child) has access, but not necessarily the knowledge.
I don’t read any medical advice generated by AI.
There are many other legitimate websites to find information.
I trust AI “information” about the same as I trust promises from politicians!
Nancy, this readership community will miss you! 🙂
I’ve found a zillion errors on AI. I think if I’d followed my original desired career path I’d be assigning term papers to be turned in at the halfway point so I would be able to check references. Anything that could be traced back to Wiki would be an automatic F. As a member of the debate squad in high school and college I learned the value of having GOOD sources.