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Do You Trust Bots? Should You Trust Bots?

January 21, 2026

These are practical and philosophical questions. I know that I do not trust the outputs from AI chatbots. I have three quite specific reasons:

  1. The systems output content that often contains errors, biases, or hallucinations or just crazy word salad.
  2. The prompts themselves feed back into some AI systems. The likelihood of the prompts introducing more errors into the AI system is high. This means that outputs will degrade over time.
  3. The prompts provide a “digital fingerprint” of a user who may have provided personal information to access the chatbot. These data can and almost certainly will be used for marketing and business intelligence purposes.

Let’s assume that chatbots are fun algorithmic software.  Some people might find it entertaining to have a conversation with chatbots or to ask them to make a funny image. Chatbots’ developers, however, don’t trust the synthetic ghosts in the machines. BGR reports that, “Many AI Experts Don’t Trust AI Chatbots – Here’s Why.”

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the world’s first AI chatbot that has above average intelligence and actually returned useful results. Other companies made their own chatbots, but ChatGPT remains at the top of the heap with 2.5 billion requests each day. The majority of these requests seek information, tips for writing, and want practical guidance.

The general public is becoming more reliant on ChatGPT, but its creators and other AI developers don’t trust chatbots. The Guardian spoke to AI developers and they expressed how technology companies prioritize fast turnaround for AI raters, don’t give them enough training nor the resources to make the best results.

It’s bad:

“One worker also revealed how some colleagues tasked with rating sensitive medical content were in possession of only basic knowledge about the topic. Criticism is not limited to the rating side. One Google AI rater revealed to The Guardian how he became skeptical of the broader technology, and even advises friends and family to avoid chatbots after seeing just how bad the data used to train models really is.”

I am no expert and I don’t trust these digital marvels. But the so called experts don’t trust the chatbots for the same reason I don’t. Yet the chatbot marketing hyperbole does not stop. I think more baloney is output and some of it is spicy. For example, Microsoft has become the butt of its own AI bludgeoning. The world associates the Microsoft Copilot with the moniker “Microslop.” Outfits like Google and Meta are facing civic group protests because of the expensive and somewhat desperate need to just make AI bigger and better. The only problem is that this push may leave these firms vulnerable to methods that are less costly and more innovative. How does one repurpose a building the size of a couple of soccer fields?

You feel free to trust bots. I don’t. Come to think of it. I don’t trust the companies pushing chatbots as the best thing since fire, the wheel, and Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose. Yep, it still exists. It sits there. A monument to business confidence that was misdirected. Spruce Goose Data Center. I like the sound of that.

Whitney Grace, January 21, 2026

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Uncategorized 

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