As Artificial Intelligence has become part of mainstream conversation, most of us who have dabbled in it are taking one of two paths: 1) Worrying about a time in the future when AI might destroy us or 2) Feeding relatively simple and harmless queries into applications to see how AI will respond.
Count me in the second group, though I should probably re-watch The Terminator to brush up on doomsday preparations.
After my wife downloaded the "Ask AI" app recently, I did the same. The first thing I had it do was write a song about her in the style of Eminem. It spit out lyrics immediately that were half-cringe and half-decent.
And then for no good reason at all, I simply typed, "Tell me about the 1998 NFC title game."
The results, as I talked about on Tuesday's Daily Delivery podcast, surprised me.
Everything was going fine in the first few paragraphs of the answer, with the bot telling me the correct basic facts about the teams, their records, where the game was played and what happened in the first quarter. But then:
"In the second quarter, the Falcons took control of the game, with (Chris) Chandler throwing two touchdown passes to tight end Reggie Kelly. The Vikings were able to score a field goal before halftime, but they went into the locker room trailing 20-10. In the second half, the Falcons continued to dominate, with Chandler throwing another touchdown pass and Morten Andersen kicking two field goals. The Vikings were able to score another touchdown on a pass from Randall Cunningham to Cris Carter, but it was too little, too late. The Falcons won the game 30-27 and advanced to Super Bowl XXXIII."
About the only thing true was the final score. The Vikings led 20-14 at halftime instead of trailing 20-10. Kelly wasn't even on the 1998 Falcons; he was drafted by them in 1999. Cunningham did not throw a second-half TD pass to Carter, and the game was far from a "ran out of time" finish but rather a dramatic, overtime gut punch.
