The Reports of Jim Carrey's Death Are a Failure Mode

tane.dev63 pointsby taubek40 comments

Discussion summary

Discussions centered on the increase in false reports, including Jim Carrey's death, and the role of AI and media verification. Participants debated accountability, misinformation, and the importance of fact-checking.

What the discussion says

AI has increased false report volume but not ratio.
Media and institutions need better verification methods.
Accountability for errors is often lacking.
Public figures' statements influence conspiracy beliefs.
Trust in news sources is inherently limited.

“Errors will be shrugged off as bugs, accountability fades.”
— gdulli

“Journalistic verification should be stricter, especially in hospitals and government.”
— bebe9494i4

Comments

Hacker News

I think AI has increased the volume of such mistakes, but not necessarily the ratio. Compare this to all too human false reports this week of Justice Alito's retirement.

Nina Totenberg was the source and has been remarkably honest about it. She saw some activity around the court, asked about it, heard "retirement announcements," and that was sufficient for her to rush a story about Alito retiring. Given her stature it was instant national news until a denial was issued.

It can be a win if the increased AI slop volume leads us to inspect all news more closely, regardless of source.

by delichon

> She saw some activity around the court, asked about it, heard "retirement announcements,"

You missed the nuance. She had left the press room and noticed many others hadn't; asking about why not, she heard "retirement announcement", but what was said was "retirement announcements"

A singular announcement, that people were waiting around to listen to, would have only been Alito. Multiple announcements could include Alito or not, but would include staff and what not. A singular staff retirement would not have kept people for long.

by toast0

What will actually happen is that instead of a person being accountable and taking a reputational hit, errors will be shrugged off as bugs and accountability will go off into the aether. Like all the other reasons to distrust the tech giants that have not meaningfully damaged or corrected them.

by gdulli

I mean mathematicians have encoded a decent amount of the operations you mean for messy versus true / false. Turing machines are built from mere Boolean logic, but also notions of compression, information theory, projections, function mappings, etc. provide all the math-crank language you want to reformulate knowledge work.

The issue is that mathematics really does not have a good answer for how things update.

by sigbottle

Not really sure what you’re getting at here. Maths has a very good answer (Bayes’ Theorem[1]) about how, in an uncertain world, one should update our belief in a hypothesis in the light of updated information.

[1] https://mathworld.wolfram.com/BayesTheorem.html

by seanhunter

Regardless of the facts, it would be a lot better if Jim Carrey directly addressed this. I don’t blame people for falling down conspiracy rabbit holes when someone they look up to dramatically changes their appearance and doesn’t say anything about it.

by therobots927

Then he gives that power. You cant do an acceptance speech after every time you're swatted and expect the pranksters to change up their game

by Obscurity4340

I do not care if journals or news publish fake information, it is a rag.

But hospitals and goverments should do much better verification. Not just follow what CNN or Fox broadcasted today.

by bebe9494i4

I'd broaden the statement to say that news sources should implicitly be distrusted on the grounds that there is no method of identifying reliable from unreliable information, unlike properly peer reviewed research or even better, direct evidence. If used as a starting point during governmental and AI proliferation of information, we might be able to actually return to a reasonably navigable social model for the human experience.

I don't honestly know why this is so difficult for humans to just do on our own, but alas...

by trimethylpurine

The title made my heart skip a beat

by Razengan

I think they ought to weight Wikipedia claims by the amount of exposure it has had.

by esafak

When it mentions jimmy carter's death I wasn't sure if the article was irony as I had completely missed that he had died (December 29, 2024 - not sure how I missed it, must have been ignoring the news that week)

by comrade1234

To be fair, the guy on the picture doesn't even look like Jim Carrey, so...

by jimbobimbo

After being very concerned that the Google agent seriously believes hitting one's jaw with a hammer was a real phenomenon, citing that the real cases must be private, a medical journal mentioned it and they would never pick up tiktok rumours (they essentially did) etc I thought it would have surely been fooled here. I suppose if not, important facts like this could be agent-checked and need a 2/2 consensus in that case

by ludamad

Or we could just stop celebrity worship

by danlugo92

I notice Gemini is essentially a frontend to Reddit at this point. I'm guessing that was on TikTok and also Reddit, while the malicious Wikipedia edit doesn't make it through a subreddit.

Too much muscle memory to change yet but I continue to want to at least try changing my default search engine to Reddit Answers for a trial to see how it compares to Google, probably at least as good.

by pjjpo

> hitting one's jaw with a hammer was a real phenomenon

It isn't? I thought the main notoriety of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavicular_(influencer) was his promotion of "bonesmashing"

Ah, but, perhaps none of it's real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looksmaxxing

> More dubiously, a practice known as bonesmashing, which refers to the act of hitting one's face against objects such as a hammer in order to create a "chiselled look", is often described when discussing looksmaxxing. This practice is considered an inside joke and is rarely done. Sources label it as misinformation.[23][24][25]

There appears to be a number of claims that people have done this, but no hard proof. Very much like an urban legend.

by amiga386

Gemini will confidently tell you "it can't possibly be a Chrome bug" even when, on certain rare occasions, it actually is. We even used Gemini to look at the code and find the bug, but it wouldn't admit this was a Chrome bug when approaching from the conversational angle.

by slowmovintarget

Liked the article's point that degree of fact-checking / verification should correspond to the risk of distributing a claim.

"Taylor Swift wore fancy dress xyz" -> who cares, copy & paste.

"Drinking soy sauce cleans your bowels" -> at least check with a doctor before parroting such dangerous bs (and if you don't & it contributes to someone's death, that's on you).

by RetroTechie

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Hacker News
I think AI has increased the volume of such mistakes, but not necessarily the ratio. Compare this to all too human false reports this week of Justice Alito's retirement.
Nina Totenberg was the source and has been remarkably honest about it. She saw some activity around the court, asked about it, heard "retirement announcements," and that was sufficient for her to rush a story about Alito retiring. Given her stature it was instant national news until a denial was issued.
It can be a win if the increased AI slop volume leads us to inspect all news more closely, regardless of source.
by delichon
> She saw some activity around the court, asked about it, heard "retirement announcements,"
You missed the nuance. She had left the press room and noticed many others hadn't; asking about why not, she heard "retirement announcement", but what was said was "retirement announcements"
A singular announcement, that people were waiting around to listen to, would have only been Alito. Multiple announcements could include Alito or not, but would include staff and what not. A singular staff retirement would not have kept people for long.
by toast0
What will actually happen is that instead of a person being accountable and taking a reputational hit, errors will be shrugged off as bugs and accountability will go off into the aether. Like all the other reasons to distrust the tech giants that have not meaningfully damaged or corrected them.
by gdulli
I mean mathematicians have encoded a decent amount of the operations you mean for messy versus true / false. Turing machines are built from mere Boolean logic, but also notions of compression, information theory, projections, function mappings, etc. provide all the math-crank language you want to reformulate knowledge work.
The issue is that mathematics really does not have a good answer for how things update.
by sigbottle
Not really sure what you’re getting at here. Maths has a very good answer (Bayes’ Theorem[1]) about how, in an uncertain world, one should update our belief in a hypothesis in the light of updated information.
[1] https://mathworld.wolfram.com/BayesTheorem.html
by seanhunter
Regardless of the facts, it would be a lot better if Jim Carrey directly addressed this. I don’t blame people for falling down conspiracy rabbit holes when someone they look up to dramatically changes their appearance and doesn’t say anything about it.
by therobots927
Then he gives that power. You cant do an acceptance speech after every time you're swatted and expect the pranksters to change up their game
by Obscurity4340
I do not care if journals or news publish fake information, it is a rag.
But hospitals and goverments should do much better verification. Not just follow what CNN or Fox broadcasted today.
by bebe9494i4
I'd broaden the statement to say that news sources should implicitly be distrusted on the grounds that there is no method of identifying reliable from unreliable information, unlike properly peer reviewed research or even better, direct evidence. If used as a starting point during governmental and AI proliferation of information, we might be able to actually return to a reasonably navigable social model for the human experience.
I don't honestly know why this is so difficult for humans to just do on our own, but alas...
by trimethylpurine
The title made my heart skip a beat
by Razengan
I think they ought to weight Wikipedia claims by the amount of exposure it has had.
by esafak
When it mentions jimmy carter's death I wasn't sure if the article was irony as I had completely missed that he had died (December 29, 2024 - not sure how I missed it, must have been ignoring the news that week)
by comrade1234
To be fair, the guy on the picture doesn't even look like Jim Carrey, so...
by jimbobimbo
After being very concerned that the Google agent seriously believes hitting one's jaw with a hammer was a real phenomenon, citing that the real cases must be private, a medical journal mentioned it and they would never pick up tiktok rumours (they essentially did) etc I thought it would have surely been fooled here. I suppose if not, important facts like this could be agent-checked and need a 2/2 consensus in that case
by ludamad
Or we could just stop celebrity worship
by danlugo92
I notice Gemini is essentially a frontend to Reddit at this point. I'm guessing that was on TikTok and also Reddit, while the malicious Wikipedia edit doesn't make it through a subreddit.
Too much muscle memory to change yet but I continue to want to at least try changing my default search engine to Reddit Answers for a trial to see how it compares to Google, probably at least as good.
by pjjpo
> hitting one's jaw with a hammer was a real phenomenon
It isn't? I thought the main notoriety of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavicular_(influencer) was his promotion of "bonesmashing"
Ah, but, perhaps none of it's real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looksmaxxing
> More dubiously, a practice known as bonesmashing, which refers to the act of hitting one's face against objects such as a hammer in order to create a "chiselled look", is often described when discussing looksmaxxing. This practice is considered an inside joke and is rarely done. Sources label it as misinformation.[23][24][25]
There appears to be a number of claims that people have done this, but no hard proof. Very much like an urban legend.
by amiga386
Gemini will confidently tell you "it can't possibly be a Chrome bug" even when, on certain rare occasions, it actually is. We even used Gemini to look at the code and find the bug, but it wouldn't admit this was a Chrome bug when approaching from the conversational angle.
by slowmovintarget
Liked the article's point that degree of fact-checking / verification should correspond to the risk of distributing a claim.
"Taylor Swift wore fancy dress xyz" -> who cares, copy & paste.
"Drinking soy sauce cleans your bowels" -> at least check with a doctor before parroting such dangerous bs (and if you don't & it contributes to someone's death, that's on you).
by RetroTechie