Last week, while the Husband and I walked around the neighborhood, a flash of red against black and white caught my eye. It was so unusual that I had to stop and get a better look at the bird. It turned out to be a woodpecker. Not just any woodpecke
r… It was a “Woody the Woodpecker” kind of woodpecker.
I had never seen this type of bird in the wild before and I was thrilled. It’s been a while since I’ve encountered new-to-me wildlife. This was so unexpected. Of course, I could not remember what kind of woodpecker it was. Thus, when I got home, I googled it.
Normally, I use udm14.com. I don’t like AI in my searches. I find UDM14 to be a lot cleaner and more correct. I forgot this time. What popped up for me when I asked Google?
A northern flicker (See below).
Once again, AI reared its ugly head and was wrong. Now, I know what a northern flicker looks like, and it does not look like Woody the Woodpecker. But, if I hadn’t already known, I could’ve walked away with incorrect information and been none the wiser.
Look, in certain circumstances, the pattern recognition of a LLMs is amazing. Especially in medical fields, and I imagine, in programming. However, you need to have a good foundation of knowledge before you can trust whatever AI comes up with.
As it stands now, in everyday life, AI is a travesty. Too many times, it is wrong—as in it guessed wrong. There’s no hallucinating going on. It would not get a passing grade in school. Yet, people trust its answers all the time. I wish to goodness AI was actually trustworthy. It’s not.
BTW, the correct answer is: Woody the Woodpecker is based on the Pileated Woodpecker.
I guess this is your old woman yells at clouds moment for the day.
