Australia, Trolls, and Social Media
August 19, 2026
The Internet isn’t a friendly place.? ? It’s full of trolls who want to bully and cancel individuals faster than lightning.? ? Anytime you post something heartfelt you’re ridiculed worse than children taunting each other.? ? We’re told not to give these trolls credence, but it’s only natural that we let them affect us.? ? There’s power in anonymity.
According to nautili.us, “We Overestimate the Prevalence of Online Trolls.”? ? We believe that trolls have way more power than they truly possess.? ? This is the finding of an online survey conducted by Stanford University.? ? These researchers found that…
“…asked more than 1,000 adults in the United States about their perceptions of the social media trolls behind “severely toxic” comments, which were defined as “hateful, aggressive, and disrespectful” posts that could encourage people to exit an online discussion. The study volunteers were recruited strategically so that the participant pool mirrored proportions of certain demographics, including gender and race, reported in the 2020 U.S. census.”
The respondents estimated how many users posted toxic comments on Reddit.? ? They guessed the number to be 43%, but in reality it’s closer to 3%.? Also the amount of fake news circulated on Facebook isn’t the predicted 47%, instead it’s 8.5%. They also wrongly believed that a whopping 38% of Reddit users were trolls when it was about one third.
When the respondents were given this data they felt less negative about their fellow humans and society was in less decline that previously predicted.? ? In short they found that “But this potentially perilous mismatch can be fixed, they noted, by “teaching people that social media can overrepresent the views of vocal accounts that post disproportionately often.”
Whitney Grace, August 19, 2026
Internet, Oh, Internet, People Do Not Love You Anymore
August 14, 2026
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Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
In the early days of the Internet I was paid to show up at technology transfer conferences and demonstrate how to “use” the Internet. Easy money. The hard part was getting a modem to connect through the often union-controlled telephone set ups in conference centers in Manhattan and my all time favorite location, Olympia Conference Center. People who “saw” my demonstrations loved the idea of using a computer to observe content displayed in truly wonky browsers. Correction. The browser I used was Mosaic. The original WorldWideWeb browser was a non-starter for my purposes.
Now the falling out of love is allegedly taking place. How do I know? I read “AI Slop, Privacy Fears, and Endless Scrolling Are Making People Fall Out of Love with the Internet.” (Of course, I believe everything I read on the Internet, alternative facts and the rest of the outstanding outputs available.)
The write up asserts:
- A majority of those in the response pool said, “AI sucks.”
- More than half of the survey’s respondents said, “My data will be ripped off.”
- About half of those in the sample said, “Yep, I doom scroll too much.”
- A majority of those in the response pool said, “AI sucks.”
And then the wild finding:
Nearly one in three of respondents would pay for an Internet with no tracking or algorithmic feeds.
Subscription-based businesses would love one-third of the goldfish in the pond pony up cash to get “information.” Like magazine subscriptions, one has to have a market, have money to sell to that market repeatedly, and deliver the elusive “value” that a subscriber knows when he or she feels it. The bottom line is that subscription-based businesses are often a tough sell, experience churn, and cost a lot of money to grow.
Will the “users” pay to run a query? Ask Kagi. Will users pay to use a large language model? (Sure, if you carrot-and-stick them, browbeat them, or just use dark methods like get the credit card and make it nearly impossible to cancel.) Does that sound better than the beloved Internet we now have?
It should. In my view, free blogs like mine exist but they are difficult to find. Web indexing is expensive and resource intensive. One indexes what produces clicks. Clicks lure advertisers. No clicks means no advertisers. Tricks to get clicks is now the core business strategy of online services. Want to read more than the headline of this article? Subscribe. Want to get updates? Give us your email, donate to my fund raising, and subscribe? Do you want to watch my intentionally wonky videos? Just buy merchandise.
I want to put my view of this survey in perspective:
- I assume the findings are good enough but without access to the methodology, the sampling method, the controls, and the statistical method I don’t know.
- Online is pervasive, and it has via a massive flow of zeros and ones sandblasted older, more time consuming ways to perform certain tasks.
- The edifice of the “Internet” is showing signs of stress. War, hackers, citizen revolt, government action against the ghost providers who enable online crime, and other forces will cause stuff to break.
What’s the outlook, dinobaby? Think old. Just remember the way the Internet used to be. The one you can access right now is the best the Internet will be.
Stephen E Arnold, August 14, 2026
Is Social Media More Than a Cultural Dumpster Fire?
July 22, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I walk away from burning dumpsters. No, let me be more precise. I avoid dumpsters. Scurrying sounds, a noisome miasma, and the possibility a fan of opioids is catching some winks make me cautious. I perceive social media as a bunch of burning dumpsters. However, for decades — maybe more than 20 years — the kumbaya world of social media has not attracted me. One reason is that I am a dinobaby, and I don’t take pix of my breakfast and post them online. Another is that a failure of social media to validate identities, thus anchoring outputs to a specific person creates an ideal hot house for ill-considered behavior. You don’t have to agree, and that is okay with me. I want to be clear about my bias on this topic.
Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
I read “The Great Digital Fatigue: How Digital Burnout Is Changing Social Media Use.” The data from surveys can illuminate facets of the world about which I was ignorant. However, I am also interested in how the surveys are structured and some of the decisions about sample size, analytic methods, and results interpretation impact the “findings.”
On these topics, here’s what the cited write up says:
The survey was conducted between the 1st and 9th of June, 2026, with the participation of 1,000 respondents. It was conducted via Cint and captured a representative sample of Americans (by age and geographic distribution).
Since the mechanics of the survey are not explained, I can only say, “I am not sure how accurate the statistics are, nor if the conclusions are based on data that are not skewed in multiple dimensions. With that observation out of the way, what’s the top finding from the report?
My reading of the article suggests that the main message is that usage of social media is not just declining, it is falling off a cliff. The reason is that social media is work. Too much work produces burnout. Burnout, therefore, results in social media disengagement.
The write up hits a meme top 10 list; for instance:
- 55 percent of those in the sample are posting less than five years ago
- 47 percent self censor
- GenZ and millennials are more like to “cite mental health” as a reason for killing their accounts
- Disconnecting is the 2026 equivalent of what I would call “dropping out.”
I want to point out that attempts to impose restrictions on social media users in Australia and in some families on my block don’t work. Those who want access to social media find a way to get to the services their friends use. Thus, while some old hands may not understand that effort invested in social media is less useful than reading, interacting with humanoids, and applying effort to rewarding activities.
Furthermore, social media outfits come in many shapes and sizes. I wonder if the sample and survey process asked about YouTube-type services, Telegram-type services, and localized Nextdoor-type services. My hunch is that I won’t know the answer to this series of points by re-reading the article.
Observations are indeed in order:
- My hunch is that the write up is designed to make a splash with a claim that the sky is falling for certain demographics’ social media use. Is that statement verifiable? I am not sure based on the write up.
- The idea that social media is work is something I am not qualified to address; therefore, it seems to me that additional information about what makes an online communications and interaction “work” and not informative, fun, or entertaining. The perception of “work” seems to be the whipping post.
- The flip side of the survey is what are the users of social media finding useful and rewarding. Someone like the social media companies should be digging into this question.
- How many other individuals perceive social media as a dumpster fire in countries in which large user pools exist? My hunch is that in some countries, social media may be the primary way people obtain information, entertain themselves, find employment or “gigs,” etc. The dumpster fires may be raging in certain places and not in others.
Let me be clear. Social media is essentially high velocity flows of information. Information has mass and the power to erode institutions, societal norms, and established processes like traditional education. I think that glittering generalities about digital burnout are catchy. I prefer research that probes the digital dumpster fires, the owners and operators, and the regulators who have only recently realized that sleeping at the switch has allowed a train carrying flammable chemicals to crash into society.
Want a prediction about the future? No. Well too bad. It is now too late. The damage has been done.
Stephen E Arnold, July 22, 2026
Statistics 101: Address Sample Bias at the Git Go; Otherwise, the Rah Rah Becomes Boo Boo
July 13, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
These BAIT outfits
I read “AI Content Is Everywhere on Social Media, Especially LinkedIn.” Snappy title. A plump target for content puffery. What’s not to like? I will answer this question in the Net net comment at the end of this dinobaby post.
The main idea of the write up is that smart software is writing social media posts. I have no doubt that humanoids are relying on smart software to make themselves appear smarter. I have been identified by an AI system as a humanoid who outputs AI-generated content. Nice assertion. Anyone who has read my articles, books, and blog posts know I have a quirky style. One of my colleagues loathes my use of “write up” instead of essay or article. Another thinks I need to include more links and footnote in the monographs I hand out to those in my law enforcement and intelligence professional training sessions. Sorry. That won’t happen. Why? I made Miss Sperling by high school English teacher crazy with my writing in 1958. I am perfectly happy writing in the same way in 2026. If AI thinks I am an AI, well, good for AI. As a humanoid, you should be able to recognize a dinobaby post with or without the jumping green dinosaur icon.
So what’s in this cited write up?
In a nutshell there are data derived from a “big” sample. The data reveal these purposely startling factoids:
- Long content is more likely to be written by smart software
- LinkedIn has the most AI generated information; Substack has the least (!)
- Reddit is a comparative good guy when it comes to presenting humanoid-created content for some content; short Reddit content is likely to be AI generated.
Wow. LinkedIn, the job hunting service, has AI-generated content. Who knew? Obviously no one except the intrepid researchers at Pangram, the outfit performing the research.
The cited research concludes with this statement:
AI writing is now a problem everywhere on social media. This is concerning, but it’s in line with what we’re seeing elsewhere online: researchers estimated that 35% of newly published websites on the open internet were AI-generated or AI-assisted. An internet that is completely flooded with undisclosed AI content is bleak, but we don’t believe it’s inevitable. We hope that by providing transparency to AI-generated content online, we can give internet users back some control of how they spend their attention.
Okay, “everywhere.” I understand because humanoids like convenience, and, by golly, getting AI to write one’s memo, email, essay, or book is convenient.
I want to point out:
- The Pangram information came from individuals who installed the AI detection extension, used the extension when visiting selected platforms, and agreed to share their extension’s statistics. Okay, this strikes me as a special group of online users.
- Social media feeds are usually personalized; therefore, if a feed is chock full of AI baloney like marketing-related content, that content may be more likely to be AI generated.
- Sources and content types were not equivalent.
- The system used a 50 word cut off, probably to reduce costs and impose normalization.
- Demographic data about the users in the sample were not disclosed.
- Detector accuracy is not the prevalence estimation validity. Plus, the model changed in the course of the study. There is no data about adjustments due to model change.
- The write up seems to be a content marketing piece designed to generate prospects for Pangram’s AI detection system.
Net net: I am not convinced that LinkedIn presents 40 percent AI content. I think that’s a low number. Sorry, Softies. Oh, and the boo boo should be obvious to anyone who paid attention in Statistics 101.
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2026
Human or AI Lawyers? Which Is Less Harmful?
June 9, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Ever since the president of Stanford University, the tree of Silicon Valley, departed because of some intellectual fancy dancing, I have been skeptical about [a] its ethos, [b] its business practices, and [c] its research. I want to comment on some of the findings reported as actual factual in “AI Outperforms Law Professors in Stanford Law Study.” I like that two “law” approach to headlines.
Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough like most AI.
Here’s the snappy subtitle:
In a rigorous blind study, law professors overwhelmingly preferred AI-generated answers to student legal questions over answers written by fellow law professors—and flagged the AI answers as potentially misleading or harmful far less often
The way I read this is as follows: Lawyers make mistakes. Some of those mistakes are “potentially misleading or harmful.” Then the coup de grâce: “far less often.” Therefore, lawyers make mistakes. These mistakes are potentially misleading or harmful. What’s that say about a lawyer graduating from Stanford or another “brand” institution, passing the bar (no, not that bar), and litigating. Yep, mistakes. More mistakes that LLM-centric AI systems known to output fake legal citations, hallucination (yes, that type), and harm.
Let’s hit the write up, shall we. I learned:
The research team took extensive precautions to ensure the study’s validity. [N.B. Those peer-reviewed papers with the bogus bio-art were allegedly afforded “extensive precautions” too.] They calibrated AI responses to match the length and structure of human answers, used multiple evaluation methods, and had professors assess whether responses might mislead or confuse students.
I think the study’s purpose is to provide “Stanford research type proof” that smart software is pretty darned good. None of that Waymo-type fear of wet streets. None of those erroneous cancer analyses one hopes a human radiologist checks before the chemo pumps starts whizzing. I think the study makes it clear that legal education and by extension cranks out humanoids who deliver “potentially misleading or harmful” human outputs. Yeah, harmful.
The write up bangs home its point with this passage:
“Our study evaluates the quality of answers given by AI tools. But how to implement these tools to most effectively improve student learning is still an open question. So we’re not advocating for wholesale adoption of AI tutors,” Nyarko cautioned. “But our data suggests that blanket skepticism may be equally unwarranted. The conversation should shift from whether AI can give accurate, high quality responses to how we can deploy it responsibly to the benefit of our students.”
To me, this is a lawyerly way to say, “Hey, AI is pretty darned capable.” But what about those humanoid lawyers? Yep, they beaver away providing “potentially misleading harmful” outputs an astounding one out of 10 times.
Stephen E Arnold, June 9, 2026
Overcome Genetics, Alcohol, and Cell Death: Your Brain Will Be Amazing
May 21, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I am a dinobaby. I am 82 years old. I just read an article from people much younger than I. I wish to point out that the nifty statements and rah rah approach to maintaining mental sharpness is essentially day old shrimp left on the counter at an outdoor restaurant in Lima, Peru.
Thanks, MidJourney. I think I look pretty spiffy. You captured my eyes.
The write up is “Scientists Say Cognitive Decline Isn’t Inevitable — Your Brain Can Improve at Any Age.” The article states:
Researchers at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas tracked nearly 4,000 adults between the ages of 19 and 94 over a three-year period. Using the BrainHealth Index (BHI) — a multidimensional tool designed to assess overall brain fitness — the team found that targeted, brain-healthy habits were linked to gains in cognitive performance across the lifespan. Unlike conventional assessments focused mainly on detecting disease or impairment, the BHI measures growth potential in three key areas: clarity (thinking skills), connectedness (social purpose), and emotional balance (mental resilience).
I like the sample size. It implies consistent grant money. I am not sure about the longitundinal 36 months. (How many of the oldsters in the study fell over dead during the study? Maybe that’s why the sample size was pumped up?)
Let’s look at some of the findings from the study. I don’t want to be too skeptical, but I await validation that the results are reproducible, free from data shaping, and the shenanigans required to find good news amidst the bad. I liked the use of New Age lingo to present a positive picture of getting old. (Remember, this is a dinobaby commenting on a rah rah report about brain stuff.) The terms include:
- Clarity (I have no idea what this means. Therefore, I am not thinking clearly.)
- Connectedness (Knowing lots of intelligence, law enforcement, and cyber attorneys and having lunch to discuss unusual homicides and online crime targeting the retirement home cohort suggests I am probably not in the mainstream social flow. I promise. I will try to be social with the people at the Ciifer conference in Virginia later this year. I am giving three talks, but as my son tells me, “Dad, you just give the same talk as you have for the last three decades. Talk about brain fade!)
- Emotional balance. (I don’t know what this means. I get angry at what comes out of the radio, YouTube, and my podcast player. I get angry at noisy lawn mowers. I get angry at people who think AI outputs accurate information. I would suggest that i get angry at most things. Get off of my lawn!)
- Overall Brain Health Index (BHI). (Please, define “health.”)
I tracked down the the complete report. It is titled “Measuring and Increasing the Brain Health Span Across Adulthood: A Public Health Imperative.” I want to point out that the phrase “Brain Health Index” is used twice in the 98 page paper on page 49 and in footnote number 25 in a 2021 source. I concluded, therefore, that BHI is not a well known term of art.
Here’s the passage in which I located the phrase “brain health index”:
We cannot rule out that changes in both utilization and the Brain Health Index may each have arisen because of a third factor – increased motivation or curiosity/personal interest – rather than being causally connected, as these can be potential confounders in any self-directed program. We embrace this as an important factor. In fact, the platform, including coaching and habit reminders/nudges, is specifically designed to motivate as well as to instruct. Hence the mere availability of an attractive and usable platform offering the expectation and pathway to improved brain health may drive this very motivation we invoke as a hypothetical third factor.
Okay, thousands of people (some of whom died before the 36 month study wrapped up) and the factors may be “confounders.” I think this means that the little “microtrainings” and other oddments may have absolutely zero to do to prevent old people from losing their brain functions more slowly or possibly more quickly because microtrainings would drive me bonkers and probably some other people as well.)
Nature’s editors bought into this rah rah approach to helping people who are ageing appear on the beam. I want to offer several observations because as a dinobaby who watches old people demonstrate that their normal ageing process produces some darned crazy and dangerous behaviors:
- Sharp thinking among old timers is random and not the norm. Round up a group of 30 from a rest home and run through some basic questions about mobile phones, major news stories, and problems with “youngsters.” I did this, and I observed massive disconnects across my sample. (Believe it or not. I was paid to run this group for a French technology company.) Conclusion: Two of the 30 were able to respond in a coherent informed manner. The others wanted to look at their grandchildren on Facebook and try to find pictures on their mobile device.)
- The faster information or a change in a physical or procedural setting is made, the more likely the old timers would be thrown for a loop. Velocity is not something humans find comforting. Oldsters demonstrate big problems in the fast of fast change. Managing an environment strikes me as an important factor.
- People get old. Cells function changes. The brain is affected. Shoot chemo into a person and that person thinks he or she can drive a car or stand on a chair to get a pan. Trust me. These are not good ideas.
The factors I observe when our remaining, living friends get together is that misinformation, biases, confusion, and craziness is the standard operating procedure. Why the law enforcement officers at the National Cyber Crime Conference did not shot me during my Dark Web Update lecture remains a mystery to me. Gun the geezer down makes sense to me.
Net net: For those seeking reassurance about how to keep granny sharp or maintain one’s own mental acuity, the research is must reading but for the paragraph I cited above. I am not a rah rah thinker. Going brain dead may be a consequence of earlier decisions, lousy genes, and reading my blog posts. Life is tough.
Stephen E Arnold, May 21, 2026
Education Is Not a Search for Short Cuts. No Kidding?
May 20, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I did not know that the Walmart clan had a foundation and funded research. More surprisingly, the research includes poking into the bloated, punch drunk belly of smart software. I read “Walton-GSV-Gallup Survey Finds Young People Are Feeling Angrier about AI, Cautious about Integrating AI in the Classroom.” No, I did not read the write up on my mobile phone whilst seeking great values on canned bean soup at Walmart.
A Gen Z professional demonstrating keen customer awareness. Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
The article states:
A new Gallup survey released today (April 9, 2026) by the Walton Family Foundation and GSV Ventures shows that a generation once seen as AI’s early adopters is now sounding the alarm on its risks, particularly in the workplace.
This sentence contains some surprises. First, who or what is GSV Ventures? According to the never-biased Google, this outfit does not disclose where its money originates or how much is pumped into the female-led “venture” firm. A German outfit named Holtzbrinck Publishing Group seems to be an outfit writing checks. The hook for the “venture firm is pre-K to gray.” The idea is that education is a life-long concern.
The second surprise is the focus on Gen Z. I think that is the cohort who cannot get jobs. When a Gen Z person does get a job, that person does not exhibit Type A behavior, plays with a mobile phone, and cannot make change. Remember, please, that I am an old dinobaby and a Type A. I don’t play with my mobile phones. I can make change AND add a check in my dinobaby brain in real time.
What did the study from these Three Musketeers reveal?
Here’s the précis of the main finding. I quote:
While the majority of Gen Zers (51%) still use the technology weekly, growth has slowed to a crawl, increasing only four percentage points over the past year. This stagnation in adoption is accompanied by a sharp decline in positive sentiment. Excitement and hopefulness have dropped by 14 and nine percentage points, respectively, while 31% of Gen Z now report feeling outright anger toward the technology, up from 22% last year. Anxiety remains high, with slightly more than 4 in 10 young people continuing to report feeling uneasy about the technology’s trajectory.
The Gen Z crowd, according to the write up, “isn’t isn’t rejecting AI outright, but they are reassessing its role in their lives. What we’re seeing in the data is a generation that recognizes AI’s utility but is increasingly concerned about its long-term impact on learning, trust and career readiness," said Stephanie Marken, senior partner at Gallup. “Their growing skepticism signals a need for more thoughtful integration of these tools in both school settings and the workplace.”
Okay, now we have the road map for the use of AI for the Walton machine and, I suppose, for the German outfit. Use AI. Just don’t go whole hog like the BAIT (big AI tech) companies.
But do we need a survey to make clear that giving a child a laptop and access to smart software which is becoming ubiquitous does not produce an individual who can read, work in a high pressure environment, and make change to put money in the coffee honor system collection box?
I want to point out that the write up I referenced provides a few words about the Gallup poll people and about the giant Main Street killer branded “Sam’s Walmart Crushing Machine.” But there is not a peep about the HSV group. What’s the problem with explaining its educational interest, its sources of funding, and its leadership team?
Net net: I think that this is another example of common sense verification research. The question is, “Why?” Also, the lack of a firm statement about education’s search for a silver bullet is disconcerting. Learning can be fun, but it takes effort, not fancy dancing.
Stephen E Arnold, May 20, 2026
Synthetic Data from Synthetic People: What If One Asks about a Topic Not in the Training Data?
May 13, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
At lunch yesterday with another dinobaby, one of the topics we kicked around was, “Why are businesses struggling to use AI in a way that does not cause problems?” The individual with whom I dined has more grandchildren than I. He was concerned that the business processes were speeding up. His grandchildren accept mobile devices, video content, and the velocity of their lives as “normal.”
“What does this mean for them? What does this mean for business going forward?” he asked.
I said, “Speed is an issue.” He looked at me glumly. I looked at him glumly.
I thought about this quite successful individual’s dual concerns: Business and grandchildren when I read “Market Research Is Too Slow for the AI Era, So Brox Built 60,000 Identical Digital Twins of Real people You Can Survey Instantly, Repeatedly.” The write up states:
Brox, a predictive human intelligence startup, recently announced a strategic funding round following a year where they reported 10X revenue growth. Their proposition is as ambitious as it is technical: the creation of a “parallel universe” populated by 60,000 digital twins of real, living human beings and their entire demographic profiles and consumer preferences, allowing enterprises to run unlimited experiments in hours rather than months.
The article adds:
The company, currently a lean 14-person operation, is positioning itself as the antithesis of the “insane” research industry. By replacing statistical models with behavioral replicas, Brox aims to transform how the world’s largest banks and pharmaceutical giants anticipate human reactions to high-stakes global and market-shifting events, or narrow, targeted product releases and personnel news, and everything in between. The kinds of surveys and specific questions that Brox asks its digital twins are completely open-ended and can be customized to fit any conceivable business customer’s use cases and goals.
Now back to the AI “struggle” some businesses face while at the same time young children just flow with the artefacts available to them, their parents, and their schools.
Businesses struggle because, by definition, they usually operate on procedures and methods discovered over time. When time is zipping along at hyper speed, an existing business is at a disadvantage. AI requires change, and implementing AI without “understanding” its nuances can lead to caution. Caution means going slow. Too bad, however, because the AI augmented express is moving faster.
Thanks, OpenAI. At least you were working when I requested an image. MidJourney and Venice.ai were not working for me.
The “gap” creates the grandfather’s anxiety about businesses and his grandchildren. Will IBM’s new AI powered data base administrator really “work” better than the flawed, expensive human variety? That’s a tough question to answer. Will my lunch partner’s grandchildren have “real jobs”? Answering these questions correctly seems to be difficult.
The story about AI instant surveys and digital twins blends the business question with the grandchildren question. For a traditional research company, like the old IP Sharp-type of outfit, this Brox story sounds a klaxon. Like it or not, Brox is likely to be just one of many New World Order research firms. Obviously the outputs will be faster than old-fashioned survey methods. My hunch is that these NWO outfits will be cheaper at first and then once the competition has been decimated and the funding sources complain, the rates will go up. But the speed is the fentanyl. Instant, repeatable surveys: How does an old-school market research firm compete?
Consider the jobs question. Let’s assume that one of my lunch mate’s grandchildren wants to be a social science/market researcher. The old-fashioned method is a case study in a text book. The better method is the AI way. It is clear that the grandchild who gets hired or who starts her own AI-powered market research firm is going to embrace the speed and repeatable approach.
Now let’s go back to the question I was asked at lunch, “Why are businesses struggling to use AI in a way that does not cause problems?” The answer is that the speed with which AI moves leaves people at the train station watching the lights of the last car fade. Those who are on the train or in the AI flow are not disoriented. In fact, the use of AI and digital twins is normal, logical, and obvious. This is bad news for organizations using AI. Something like 85 percent of businesses have AI and are using it internally. Yet only five percent, if I remember correctly, are pushing it out to the paying customers. Anxiety forces a conservative approach. Conservatism means a slower pace. Ergo. The speedy are in a better position to gut the old-fashioned outfits.
What if the digital twin approach to research is wrong? The answer is, “Rerun the research and try again.” The result, in my opinion, is more of the “good enough” result or “close enough for horseshoes.” Speed blurs some details. Therefore, one has to adapt to a world in which “good enough” is “excellent”.
Is there a fix? Nope. AI is another destabilizer of what dinobabies like me perceive as the optimal way to run a business and assist grandchildren. Managing AI is going to be a needed skill for businesses and parents. Developing that expertise is going to be a process.
What happens if a survey on a topic not in the training data is surveyed? Yeah, think good enough. I think that’s why my friend and I just looked at one another over our salads … glumly.
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2026
SAT Time. Robots, Boot Yourselves
May 12, 2026
ScienceDaily reports that, “Scientists Built The Hardest AI Test Ever And the Results Surprising” or, in other words, they decided to put through AI through standardized testing. The hardest test in the world for AI was designed by nearly 1000 researchers. It is called “Humanity’s Last Exam” (HLE) and it’s 2500 questions. The subjects covered are specialized academic fields, ancient languages, natural sciences, humanities, and mathematics. The test was made to remind us that intelligence is more than pattern recognition and memorization. It is about specialized expertise, context, and depth.
HLE’s questions were tested against the Big AI Tech (BAIT) chatbots. If any of them answered a question correctly, that specific question was removed. That ensured the test remained difficult and right at the edge of the chatbots’ capabilities. Here’s what that accomplished:
“Early testing confirmed that the strategy worked. Even powerful AI models struggled with the exam. GPT-4o achieved a score of 2.7 percent, while Claude 3.5 Sonnet reached 4.1 percent. OpenAI’s o1 model performed somewhat better with 8 percent. The most capable systems so far, including Gemini 3.1 Pro and Claude Opus 4.6, have reached accuracy levels between about 40 percent and 50 percent.”
Why did this particular test return what seem to be shocking results? Most of the AI tests are a bit like the butcher in Campinas, Brazil, in 1953. My mother would specify an amount of meat and the friendly person behind the counter used a thumb to prove that the amount order was indeed on the scale.
Was this intentional? You bet your life as Groucho Marx once said. Fiddling data is the name of the game in some fancy software systems. Oh, the results don’t look right. Let’s change this threshold value. Oh, the model is providing information about self harm. Let’s filter that before displaying a result. You get the idea. AI absolutely has to be shaped. Why? It outputs errors. It makes up information. It presents content to make the human dependent or over confident or captured by wonky outputs.
Making AI appear smart is about making money and gaining control. Creating tests that prove how smart AI is works until someone says, “Hey, let’s make a test that does not pander to the big AI tech companies.”
Whitney Grace, May 12, 2026
The Superbestest AI Is? Yes, Grok
May 7, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Visualize a pleasant day on April 7, 1945. The largest and most expensive battleship was attacked by several hundred aircraft. The ship suffered direct hits from bombs and torpedoes. Imagine that you are pushing spotting boats around the deck so the blast from the Yamato’s guns would not damage the boats. Lots of action. Lots of effort. Lots of money. The Yamato capsized and its forward munitions magazine exploded. Hasta la vista, Yamato.
I thought of the good ship when I read “Everyone’s Switching from ChatGPT to Claude — But New Tests Say Neither Is the Smartest Free AI, and the Real Winner Might Surprise You.” The test was not comprehensive: No Gemini, China China China, or Mistral.
An outfit named OmniCalculator did the “research.” Let me cut to the finish line. Grok 4.2 is the “smartest AI around.” Ah, you don’t believe it? Why is Grok the big dog in being “smart”?
The write up says:
When it comes to the quantifiable math ability of these AI chatbots, the smartest free AI model is, rather surprisingly, Grok. xAI’s Grok 4.2 model specifically. That doesn’t mean anything about its writing style and ability, or anything else chatbots can do, but it does suggest that it might have the edge in math prowess.
Okay, but I thought the Google technology was “good” in math. I think I heard the PR wanna be from DeepMind make that clear to dinobabies like myself. The OmniCalculator created a chart, and it showed how good the Grok 4.2 system was in this three hombre race.
Here is the chart of totally reproducible research (like most modern research these days):
© Omnicalculator, 2026
Okay, so if I input one of those videos YouTube thinks I crave along with news about auto shop scams, French slang, and ancient lost technology, what’s my result.
Here’s the quiz from Math Queen: Solve for x when x = x / 5. You can watch the MQ entity method on the new Boob Tube.
Claude said:
x = x / 5 is only true when x = 0.
ChatGPT said:
x = 0
Grok said:
Final Answer: x=0
The dinobaby (me) looked at the expression and said, “Zippo.” The smart software and I presented the correct answer.
Grok may be better than ChatGPT if these reported data are valid. I am not sure Claude and ChatGPT are significantly better than one another.
But Grok? Yes, Grok is the winner. The cited article says:
[Grok] is far less likely to backtrack or alter its conclusions mid-process. That’s great for reasoning and logic, but not much help in mimicking the smooth tones that make other models feel more polished.
Yes, a win for Elon. ChatGPT and Claude are smarmy and that’s why people like them.
My view is different. The basic “idea” for the BAIT (big AI tech firms) smart software is Google’s Attention Is All You Need paper. Therefore, fiddling with the knobs and dials of the algorithms produces variances. But if the only material one has to build a house is cardboard. Houses built of that material share a fundamental characteristic: Yep, cardboard. How long do some of those township and favela dwellings last?
I think Omnicalculator did a good job of presenting Grok as a winner. Mr. Musk’s testimony at the trial contesting the status of OpenAI did not strike me as the output of a Sam Snead or Annie Oakley. Therefore, I conclude that this excellent bit of research is content marketing designed to present Grok as the direct talking, nuts-and-bolts smart software everyone needs.
I wonder why DeepMind and the China China China models were not in the competition. Oh, I know. It’s like youth sports. Pay to play, right?
Now back to the biggest and most expensive battleship. Took hits. Sank. End of story for the effort put into moving stuff around the deck.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2026
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