So, there I was, trying to remember the title of a book I had read bits of, and I thought to check a Wikipedia article that might have referred to it. And there, in “External links”, was … “Wikiversity hosts a discussion with the Bard chatbot on Quantum mechanics”.
How much carbon did you have to burn, and how many Kenyan workers did you have to call the N-word, in order to get a garbled and confused “history” of science? (There’s a lot wrong and even self-contradictory with what the stochastic parrot says, which isn’t worth unweaving in detail; perhaps the worst part is that its statement of the uncertainty principle is a blurry JPEG of the average over all verbal statements of the uncertainty principle, most of which are wrong.) So, a mediocre but mostly unremarkable page gets supplemented with a “resource” that is actively harmful. Hooray.
Meanwhile, over in this discussion thread, we’ve been taking a look at the Wikipedia article Super-recursive algorithm. It’s rambling and unclear, throwing together all sorts of things that somebody somewhere called an exotic kind of computation, while seemingly not grasping the basics of the ordinary theory the new thing is supposedly moving beyond.
So: What’s the worst/weirdest Wikipedia article in your field of specialization?
nice! I had a very incomplete draft for this thread but I’m glad you got there first since my writing time is currently limited.
for the field of computer science, from the discussion thread you mentioned, @gerikson@awful.systems started us down the rabbit hole that is the Solomonoff induction Wikipedia article, whose mess of a Turing machines section was obviously authored by the same mind as the super-recursive algorithms article, seems to be based on Rationalist buzzwords and no actual science (Solomonoff induction being one, but this author of course also dips into thinking machine bullshit, DNA-based computing, and all your favorite dime store futurist tropes), is utterly taken with what sounds like basic computability (inductive Turing machines are special because they can (gasp) implement algorithms), and frequently degrades into the CS equivalent of a flat earther trying to do science. it’s a wild fucking ride to read both articles as a shared universe of bullshit, and I wonder how much garbage this author in particular has managed to spew onto Wikipedia
peer review: a very good time if you know basic CS theory and want something to laugh at
oh fuck, the above section was so bad that our own David Gerard took it out back and shot it, rest in peace to the time cube of CS. the rest of the article is vastly more sane without the Turing machines section (Solomonoff induction is a real thing, though not in the way that the Rationalists would like it to be), so let this saved copy of the old version serve as a companion to the insanity of the super-recursive algorithms article
I would like to take the author of that bilge and trap him in a basilisk-esque hell dungeon where they are forced to simulate a Turing machine with paper and pencil for all eternity.
