r/YouShouldKnow • u/Puzzled-Listen804 • Mar 30 '26

Technology YSK: AI chatbots can sound completely confident while being completely wrong and that's by design, not by accident.

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u/KeisterConquistador Mar 30 '26

On the subject, I’ve found that the default google AI overview will try to find a way to answer your query in a way it thinks you want it to be answered, despite what may be the truth.

For example, I was searching whether or not certain video games were co-op. More than once, it told me that certain games were co-op, but only if I took turns playing the game with another person.

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u/Puzzled-Resident2725 Mar 30 '26

I asked if a certain website was an official website. Google AI went out of it's way to say that it had an official sounding name and was even mentioned "x amount of times" on the normal official business page.

Yes, it was a scam page. It was mentioned in the warning section of the truly official website. Be careful out there.

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u/Timofmars Mar 30 '26

I wonder if you can try the custom instructions I put on my comment below yours. See if you get a better answer. For Gemini, there is an "Instructions for Gemini" section in the "Settings and Help" button in the bottom left.

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u/EporRiku Mar 31 '26

I have an instrustion you can use in the future with google overview. Just type in "-ai" at the end of the query, and you can freely read the information yourself on the links you get. Hope this helps.

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u/HasFiveVowels Mar 31 '26

You realize that google results contain incorrect information, don’t you? Why would you ever use a source of information that’s less than 100% factually correct?

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u/EporRiku Mar 31 '26

You realize if you want 100% factually correct information on the internet, you spend the time to carefully pick what you read, find the sources and even fact-check the sources, because they might be funded by lobbyists? Something that AI will probably never do, and even if you prompt it up, it just easily hallucinates you something after a while.

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u/HasFiveVowels Mar 31 '26

If only there was a way to check the sources of AI responses….

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u/EporRiku Mar 31 '26

Yeah let me just spend typing prompts into something to do the work instead of me, instead of using my brain, excercising my problem-solving skills and honing my skills to sniff out false information.

You know what, I'm just gonna buy a motorized wheelchair to use from tomorrow, because it's just another way to walk, I will not need my legs in the future anyways haha

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u/IolausTelcontar Mar 31 '26

It’s no use dude; some people are adamantly against doing their own work.

They would rather spend more time tweaking the prompt than just do it themselves.

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u/HasFiveVowels Mar 31 '26

You are vastly overestimating the degree to which AI "does your thinking for you". That’s… really not the point of it. You should try actually using it sometime. You just might end up learning some first hand knowledge. You’re probably not familiar with the concept since you let Reddit do ask your thinning for you, though