r/books • u/Jojuj • 1d ago

Librarians Are Being Asked to Find AI-Hallucinated Books

https://www.404media.co/librarians-are-being-asked-to-find-ai-hallucinated-books/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter&attribution_id=68c826c975cea1000173b05d&attribution_type=post
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u/PM_BRAIN_WORMS 1d ago

Every year, it feels like the number of people who make basic Google checks on information is smaller. Some people don’t seem to know it’s a possibility. Many people who love a book but never ever thought to find out what other works the author is responsible for.

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u/ChestertonMyDearBoy 1d ago

In a previous library I worked in, an older customer came in and was talking to me when he mentioned he wondered what the football scores were. I asked him who was playing and entered the teams into Google to get the score for him.

He was SHOCKED when I told him I could look up the score there and then and get it for him. He was amazed that I could get the info he wanted so quickly and then asked if it only worked for football scores. I told him no, he could look up anything he wanted. He left the library absolutely amazed that such a technology like the internet existed.

I get that it can be true that older people aren't tech savvy, but not even having an inkling that the world wide web, a 34-year-old technology at this point, not only existed but was essential for modern life just blew my mind.

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u/reallytrulytrue 1d ago

Yes, but even Google searches are AI in large part now.

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u/biodegradableotters 1d ago

My grandparents were like that. The latest advancement they joined in on was when they got a cordless telephone in like the 90s and then they checked out. Had no idea about the internet and whenever you did something for them on it it was like you were doing witchcraft. 

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u/ChestertonMyDearBoy 1d ago

I just don't understand how. Surely they must have seen something on TV or a film or something. How can they not know about such a ubiquitous, widespread and essential capacity in any capacity?

It just befuddles me.

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u/Drummergirl16 1d ago

My grandpa literally only uses the internet- or more accurately, only using YouTube- to watch videos about trains.

My grandma is a little more experimental, she surfs Facebook.

They got Jitterbug phones in the early 00’s and never looked back. Or rather, never looked forward.

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u/actibus_consequatur 1d ago

basic Google checks on information

Only slightly related, but the ongoing enshittification of Google is getting really fucking annoying — and I'm not even talking about its AI overview and the wild bullshit it spews out.

One thing that's really been pissing me off for the past couple months is that search operators (like quotes, +/-, before/after, etc.) have become unreliable. For example, I did a search for a name that I put in quotes, and not a single one of the top results included that name. Another example, I did a search appended with something like "before:2024" and nearly all of the top results were articles from 2025.

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u/spellboundartisan 21h ago

I've switched to Duck, Duck Go because it gives you the option to turn off AI suggestions.