[TUHS] A thing I did (AI Slop Alert)

[Ken Thompson via TUHS]

a week ago, i was trying to get AI to
help me design an electronic circuit.
there were about four critical pieces,
and on every iteration, it would let
one lapse. in frustration, i said
something like "you're hopeless, i quit."

the damn thing passed me off to a
suicide hot line. worse than that,
i wouldnt let me go. i finally had
to declare how very happy i was and
what a nice day it was before it let
me go.

i guess the AIs are very aware of
when they taught a kid how to
off himself.

On Tue, Aug 11, 2026 at 6:12 PM Kenneth Goodwin via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
wrote:

> On the off topic subject of AI, I just asked Google's AI running on my
> smart clock-
> Hey Google, what kind of day did you have?
> She replied
> I had a very good day. I studied in detail all the musical instruments of
> the world.
>
> She then said the name of an obscure (to me) musical instrument from India
> and began playing a lovely tune on that instrument..
>
> Was not a response I anticipated. Her usually response being "I am sorry,
> I do not understand the question"
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 8:48 PM Noel Hunt via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
>
> > I would have to say that my experience of what is called 'AI' is somewhat
> > akin to that of Mark V. Shaney when he said 'I once spent an interesting
> > evening with a grain of salt'.
> >
>