Post #2913116
2026-02-11 11:12 UTC
@johnbutler@typo.social I would argue the Wikipedia page is more useful. It’s marked as a stub (could also benefit from a clearer “lacks citations” banner), but it has enough entry points to research this further. In contrast, the other website peppers its three references in the opening paragraph as if they support individual assertions, which they don’t appear to actually do. I am unfamiliar with the subject but if you asked me to review the paragraph, I’d say “Before ceasing typesetting operations in 2009” is an unsupported claim. That’s before getting into the aspect of ingesting sources indiscriminately.
Replies (1)
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@db@typo.social 2026-02-11 11:21
@johnbutler@typo.social The „bots” on Wikipedia, as far as I’m aware (but I may be out of date), are performing mundane, well-understood tasks. LLMs can be insightful — the same way a pair of dice, or opening the dictionary at a random page, or a deck of Oblique Strategies can be — and a pre-generated „every Wikipedia article metabolized through an LLM” is theoretically ”hmm, I guess?” territory. But posing as an encyclopedia with performative „citations” designed to drown out Wikipedia is another thing, and worse than useless. You can observe the same tacked-on citation kayfabe on search engine AI summaries.