AI search engines give incorrect answers at an alarming 60% rate, study says

CJR study shows AI search services misinform users and ignore publisher exclusion requests.

A new study from Columbia Journalism Review's Tow Center for Digital Journalism finds serious accuracy issues with generative AI models used for news searches. The research tested eight AI-driven search tools equipped with live search functionality and discovered that the AI models incorrectly answered more than 60 percent of queries about news content.

Researchers Klaudia Jaźwińska and Aisvarya Chandrasekar noted in their report that roughly 1 in 4 Americans now uses AI models as alternatives to traditional search engines. This raises serious concerns about reliability, given the substantial error rate uncovered in the study.

Error rates varied notably among the tested platforms. Perplexity provided incorrect information in 37 percent of the queries tested, whereas ChatGPT Search incorrectly identified 67 percent (134 out of 200) of articles queried. Grok 3 demonstrated the highest error rate, at 94 percent.

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Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was minus 280° F

“You lose it, and then what do you do? You don’t give up. You go back in.”

The Athena spacecraft was not exactly flying blind as it approached the lunar surface one week ago. The software on board did a credible job of recognizing nearby craters, even with elongated shadows over the terrain. However, the lander's altimeter had failed.

So while Athena knew where it was relative to the surface of the Moon, the lander did not know how far it was above the surface.

An important detail, that. As a result, the privately built spacecraft struck the lunar surface on a plateau, toppled over, and began to skid across the surface. As it did so, the lander rotated at least once or twice before coming to a stop in a small, shadowed crater.

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Google expands it PC gaming platform to support ALL Android games and more PC games

Folks have been finding ways to run Android games on Windows PCs for almost as long as Android’s been around. But in 2022 Google launched its own official platform called Google Play Games for Windows. At launch it only supported a handful of And…

Folks have been finding ways to run Android games on Windows PCs for almost as long as Android’s been around. But in 2022 Google launched its own official platform called Google Play Games for Windows. At launch it only supported a handful of Android games. But over time Google added support for thousands of additional […]

The post Google expands it PC gaming platform to support ALL Android games and more PC games appeared first on Liliputing.

What happens when DEI becomes DOA in the aerospace industry?

“Ten years ago this was embraced by everyone, and seen as a win-win for all.”

Last month a nonprofit that recognizes exceptional undergraduate women and gender minorities with space and aviation internships, the Brooke Owens Fellowship, announced its latest class of "Brookies."

This ninth class of 45 students was selected from more than 400 applications, and they will fan out to aerospace companies across the country, from large firms such as SpaceX and Blue Origin to smaller startups like Vast and Stoke. There they will be paired with executive-level mentors who will help launch their careers.

However there was a cloud hanging over this latest group of exceptional students: They may be the last class of Brookies to receive aerospace internships.

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Google has a fix for your broken Chromecast V2 unless you factory reset

Just keep your Chromecast plugged in, and it should come back to life.

Google's venerable 2015 Chromecast attempted to self-destruct earlier this week, upsetting a huge number of people who were still using the decade-old streaming dongles. Google was seemingly caught off guard by the devices glitching out all at the same time, but it promised to address the problem, and it has. Google says it has a fix ready to roll out, and most affected devices should be right as rain in the coming days.

Google is still not confirming the cause of the Chromecast outage, but it was almost certainly the result of a certificate expiring after 10 years. It would seem there was no one keeping an eye on the Chromecast's ticking time bomb, which isn't exactly surprising—Google has moved on from the Chromecast brand, focusing instead on the more capable Google TV streamer. Even if Google is done with the Chromecast, its customers aren't.

If you left your 2015 Chromecast or Chromecast Audio alone to await a fix, you're in good shape. The update should be delivered automatically to the device soon. "We’ve started rolling out a fix for the problem with Chromecast (2nd gen) and Chromecast Audio devices, which will be completed over the next few days. Users must ensure their device is connected to WiFi to receive the update," says Google.

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Meta plans to test and tinker with X’s community notes algorithm

X algorithm will link community notes across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Meta plans to test out X's algorithm for Community Notes to crowdsource fact-checks that will appear across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

In a blog, Meta said the testing in the US would begin March 18, with about 200,000 potential contributors already signed up. Anyone over 18 with a Meta account more than six months old can also join a waitlist of users who will "gradually" and "randomly" be admitted to write and rate cross-platform notes during initial beta testing.

Meta claimed that borrowing X's approach would result in "less biased" fact-checking than relying on experts alone. But the social media company will delay publicly posting any notes until it's confident that the system is working.

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In one dog breed, selection for utility may have selected for obesity

Selecting trainable dogs may have gotten us dogs that would do anything for a treat.

Labrador retrievers are common pets, but they also work as service dogs, aiding people with sight or hearing impairments. Unfortunately, the breed is particularly prone to getting overweight, and this tendency apparently is more severe in Labradors purpose-bred for service. To figure out the reasons behind this, researchers at Cambridge University investigated potential obesity genes in Labrador retrievers’ DNA.

It turned out increased obesity risk in Labradors was linked to the same genes and mechanisms that cause obesity in humans. These gene variants were more common in purpose-bred dogs we carefully selected, generation after generation, to maximize the results of the demanding training programs service animals must go through.

We thought we were picking the smartest Labradors to become guide dogs. But we might have been picking the ones that just wanted the snacks given as rewards the most.

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