epistemology – Book and Sword

How Generative ‘AI’ Pollutes Search Results

Screenshot of a chatbot-generated search result for "has google ever claimed that YouTube made a proffit" on DuckDuckGo. It says that"Google has indicated that YouTube has been profitable since at least 2009" and links two sources. A note at the bottom warns "Auto-generated based on listed sources. May contain inaccuracies."

In February 2026 I forgot to use noai.duckduckgo.com and saw a result from their AI assistant at the top of my search results. Like a lot of things produced by ‘generative AI’ it looks fun at first glance but sad as soon as you pay attention. Today I will post about what is wrong with this answer and with the whole premise.

Knowing Things is Hard

Knowing things is hard, even about the past. Over the years I have compiled pithy names for some of the reasons why this is. This week I decided to share them in the style of Andrew Gelman’s Handy Statistical Lexicon or Samuel Johnson’s dictionary. Right now many entries are blank or just link to other people’s websites and articles. If I ever turn these into a book, I will expand them. Until then I can add entries one at a time as they become necessary.

Wikipedia Culture, Journalistic Culture, and Academic Culture

A warning from Wikipedia saying "This argument relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources." — The Wikipedia {{primary sources}} cleanup template, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_index/Cleanup#Verifiability_and_sources Cleanup templates are for articles which should be improved. A good feature of Wikipedia is that these templates provide hints on how to improve the article instead of just complaining.

Have you ever seen a Wikipedia page warn you that it cites too many primary sources? Or wondered why the most active Wikipedia editors tend to be understimulated older or younger people but rarely practitioners, researchers, or journalists?¹ It turns out these two factors are connected, because Wikipedia has a unique culture which is hard for academics or journalists to engage with.