Posted on May 8, 2026
Posted by John Scalzi
Your occasional reminder that “AI” is shit: Every assertion in this “AI Overview” of the question “What coffee does John Scalzi drink” is wrong. I don’t regularly drink coffee (and never black) I’ve never had black sesame jasmine cream tea, and I don’t hang in coffee shops. Don’t trust “AI” ever!
I still ask “AI” questions about me from time to time, just to see what it knows about a moderately notable science fiction author and whether it will still make up things when it doesn’t know something, and as of May 8, 2026, the answer to each is “not as much as it thinks it does,” and “it definitely will.”
As always, I remind myself: If it knows this little about something I know very well, think of how little it knows about things I know nothing about. It literally cannot be trusted with anything factual (because, one again, it doesn’t know facts, it just knows what is statistically likely to be the next word), and thinking that can be is an actual intellectual hazard and fault. Don’t be the one who does that.
— JS
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