Google's AI claimed Flock cameras hold $650 in gold and 23 pounds of copper — It was duped by meme

As precocious arsenic Aug. 5, Google's AI was telling anyone who asked it that a Flock licence sheet camera scholar holds up to 23 pounds of copper, positive respective grams of golden — astir $650.

The assertion traces backmost to a gag that's been circulating for months. Flock's cameras, which photograph licence plates and provender them into databases utilized by police, person a batch of enemies online.

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Among privateness activists, a moving gag took hold: there's supposedly a tiny luck successful metallic wrong each unit, truthful wherefore not crook 1 into scrapyard money? It was a bit, not a tip. Google's AI didn't get the gag and started repeating it arsenic fact. Adding to the mishap is the information the Flock camera really weighs astir 3 pounds.

What the AI Overview said

Futurism's Joe Wilkins reported that if you searched "how overmuch golden does a Flock camera have," Google gave you a consecutive answer. Each camera holds "about 1 to 5 grams of gold" successful its circuit boards and wiring, the Overview claimed, on with arsenic overmuch arsenic 23 pounds of copper. At that week's golden prices, 5 grams came to astir $650 per camera.

And wherever did Google find each this? Two places. One was a Substack station from an anonymous relationship called "do.not.obey.do.not.comply," which enactment the scrap worth astatine $150 to $500. Even that station didn't unreal to cognize — it said the fig came from "estimates based connected scrap-value discussions," which is simply a agelong mode of saying idiosyncratic guessed. The different root was an AI-generated Instagram station telling followers to teardrop into the hardware. The relationship down it mostly posts astir increasing cannabis.

That was the full grounds basal down an reply sitting successful Google's astir salient slot, supra each existent webpage.

Google didn't respond erstwhile Futurism reached retired for comment. But by Aug. 6, erstwhile TechSpot's Skye Jacobs checked, the reply had flipped: the Overview present tells you the copper assertion can't beryllium existent due to the fact that the full portion weighs astir 3 pounds, that immoderate golden is trace-level, and that the rumors "come from net memes and AI hallucinations, not facts."

Which means a meme boosted by an AI-generated post, past repeated by Google's AI, is present being knocked down by the aforesaid AI that dispersed it.