Less than a week after posting about Google and AI, Betty went for lunch with her friends. That lunch exemplified everything that's wrong, dangerous and sometimes hilarious about artificial intelligence.
The lunch began the same way it would with any group of Octogenarians. Alcohol. Once settled into the local Mexican restaurant's patio with a glass of booze, talked turned to the price of things as it always does when Betty is in the conversation.
The topic of conversation was my front porch. The deck of it needs to be redone because the edge of the boards are rotting. There's something living under there too. I have no idea what, but my guess is it wouldn't be cute enough to be featured on Sesame Street.
As everyone discussed their outrage over the price of all things Betty mentioned I couldn't even afford get my porch done this year.
To which her friend replied, Sure she can. She's worth of 3 million dollars.
I'd like to take a moment to announce I am not worth 3 million dollars.
I am worth at least 8 million.
I know that because this random search result on Google tells everyone so.
The birthday they have listed for me is WAY off. I was born in Canada.
To the credit of my mother's friend, the search result above this one did have me valued at 3.1 million dollars. Another one has me at 6 million.
How does it work?
A general explanation of it is that a person decides to create a website with the sole purpose of making as much money as possible with as little effort as possible. They are in no way interested in having facts.
They use bots to scrape information from the web. It's all automated. The bot (short for robot) is a software program that extracts data then exports it back to the nefarious website creator in the form of a blog post.
In this instance ...
The bot scrapes a person's ranking on social media platforms and Google then translates those numbers into a projected (made up) salary.
Then all the information it could find is robobarfed into a blog post without so much as a "HAHAHAHAHA, THIS IS HILARIOUS, none of this is even remotely true or relevant but here we are the #1 search result, HAHAHAHAHA."
So yeah. That's the state of Google and AI at the moment.
This happened less than a week after my post warning you a little bit about Google and AI.
And in that very same post, I gave everyone reading a chance to win an Aerogarden plus an Art of Doing Stuff tea towel. I have chosen a winner.
Did you win?
To pick a winner, I loaded all the comments (almost 900) onto my phone and then scrolled up and down with my eyes closed.
The last scroll I took my finger off the phone and let it stop naturally.
View the video to see if your name is the one I landed on at the very end of the video.
Congratulations Linda, you are the proud new owner of an Aerogarden and tea towel with a cleaver on it that might smell a little bit like suitcase because that's where I've been storing the 5 remaining, much coveted, tea towels.
Now if you'll all excuse me I've decided to forget about fixing my porch and will buy this house for sale in town instead because it's more befitting of my imaginary net worth.
I will be able to take care of it with the help of my imaginary butler and landscaper (unless they happen to have very large social media followings in which case they're probably already making upwards of a billion imaginary dollars a year.)
Linda in Illinois
Congratulations Linda from another Linda who heart stopped when I saw the winners name.
Love you Karen. Thanks for the laugh.
Dorothy Borders
This has nothing to do with your post. I just wanted to thank you for your pie crust recipe. It's fabulous! Rhubarb, raspberry, blueberry, even gooseberry pie using green berries the way my dad likes them. Talk about pucker! Anyway, everyone loves your pie crust. 👍
Teresa Chandler
You are worth 8 million- you just aren’t being paid what you’re worth.
RandyP
Well you DO have a million dollar smile, a million dollar figure and a couple million bucks worth of wit and charm..... so you got THAT going for you... which is nice.
Him, Again.
Oh, My!
Seniors, booze and Mexican food?
The stair farts must have been atrocious!
Sherri
I’ve got 20 acres, a house and a grand barn in southeastern Nebraska I’ll sell you for 3.1 mil!
Jan in Waterdown
Would that be in Canadian or Americans dollars? It makes a difference 😉