Oh, the sheer stupidity of generative AI...

[highplainsdem]

I just did a search for

iggy pop

and Google's AI Overview, which appears above other search results and is rarely helpful and often wrong, gave me its mindless summary on the subject of Eggy Pop.

And no, I had not misspelled Iggy's name.

But this was the AI response:

AI Overview
"Eggy Pop" can refer to several different things, primarily a minigame in Yoshi's New Island, a band, or a type of lamp.
In Yoshi's New Island, "Eggy Pop" is a two-player minigame where players pop balloons for points.
It's a pun on the name of the musician Iggy Pop, who is also referenced in the game as Iggy Koopa.
Additionally, there's a band called "Eggy Pop" known for songs about breakfast foods like eggs and cereal.
Finally, "Eggy Pop" is also the name of a pendant light fixture from Cph Lighting, designed with a soft, glare-free light.
More Details:

-snip-

And btw, it's fine to quote that much of an AI Overview. What's generated by AI can't be copyrighted. And it typically can't be duplicated by the AI tool, which will waste energy generating a new answer each time, using much more electricity than regular search.

I've seen clueless responses from Google's AI Overview before, and read about a lot more, but this is the worst I've encountered myself. Makes me wonder if Google's AI Overview is now using one of the newer AI models that have been shown to hallucinate even more than the older ones.

The AI companies have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on this crap, and they want it used extensively, especially in education and now government - really in all areas of our economy and lives. If we survive the Trump thugocracy and the AI bros' power grab, this is likely to be looked back on as the stupidest tech and stupidest era ever.