There are a litany of reasons to take the output of generative AI with a heavy dose of salt. Its answers are known to sound authoritative, convincing, and elaborate — while simultaneously being completely and utterly wrong.
It’s a lesson astrophysicist and science communicator Paul Sutter learned the hard way, and was brave enough to share with the world. In a article for the publication Nautilus earlier this month, Sutter retold a truly harrowing story that feels like something yanked straight out of a stress-induced nightmare.
In February, he gave a presentation in front of a room full of “collaborators,” revealing a new update for his algorithm designed to spot voids, or empty regions between galaxies.
The new version was “ten times faster than the old one” had a “more sophisticated way of dealing with the ugly realities of an actual data set” and could “handle surveys a hundred times larger,” Sutter recalled.
