Why does the summary of each map read like it was AI generated? Somehow no feeling at all in any of the summaries.
> By 1980, Moscow was under intense scrutiny from Western intelligence agencies.
> The city hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics during a period of heightened Cold War tension following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. CIA maps like this would have been useful for diplomatic security planning, intelligence analysis, and understanding the geography of Soviet government operations.
The clean graphic design is characteristic of late Cold War CIA cartography.
> Rather than artistic relief shading seen in earlier maps, this style focused on clarity, precision, and rapid interpretation. E (sic)
> very rail yard, roadway, and public site could hold intelligence value, especially in a closed society like the USSR where reliable geographic information was often difficult for outsiders to obtain.
I can’t find a human behind any of this on the website. I’m certain there is one, but I’m not certain the summary is anything other than AI generated. Content farms at a new level? To what end?
Ah, the company that owns the site “Brilliant British Ltd” is a content farm. Its managing director says this on his own LinkedIn profile (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-wright-2079531b?originalSubd...):
> I am currently the Managing Director of Brilliant British Ltd, which owns and operates several websites in the UK payment, energy and small business sectors.
> Previously I was the Senior SEO manager for the EMEA region at Hotels.com and the Head of B2B SEO at MVF (Winner of the Sunday Times Tech Track 2013). I have over 13 years experience in SEO and online marketing and have worked for large corporations, startups and independently over that time.
> In my spare time I continue to operate a few test websites to see what's working in the world of SEO and also run my blog RandomlyLondon.com which has been featured in the Londonist, TimeOut and The Guardian.
And in the ‘blurb’ in his current company, he says:
> I'm currently the Managing Director of Brilliant British Ltd which publishes websites in various sectors including, business finance, payments and home improvements.
Maybe because it is AI generated? Not sure if it's true, but I had the same feeling. Also, it reads like someone seeing a good old city map for the first time: "Rather than artistic relief shading seen in earlier maps, this style focused on clarity, precision, and rapid interpretation." Yes, city maps rarely have relief shading, that would only get in the way.
What is the opposite of ai psychosis? Where you're so afraid of being hoodwinked that you accuse ai of being everywhere
In this case, not only is it a theory that fits the facts, it’s likely.
A content farm having a disparate range of websites, for the sole purpose of SEO needs to be able to create engaging content quickly. AI generation allows for that; and by purposefully keeping a name that we can try to trace back to a real human as the author, the post itself lends credence to the theory that it’s AI generated.
Ironically we're not far from having custom AI filters that remove any sentiment we want, namely, "this seems AI generated".
I'm with you, those comments add no value and are only guesses. Even normal samples of writing will include AI traits like em dashes or "it's not just that, it's this". Conversely, it's not difficult to tell an AI to stop sounding like itself. It's overall burned thought cycles that can never be recovered.
My pet peeve lately is low effort comments that don't reflect anything substantive in the content. We don't have that problem on HN, but on YouTube it's prevalent. Comments like "absolutely/me too/exactly what I thought" etc. The only thing they can help are bot farms, and even if they were from a human they offer no value.
Discernment?
Whatever they and their affliction are called, they've successfully ruined the last few comment sections on the web that were still worth visiting for me. I hope they'll eventually receive the help they so desperately need. Maybe they'll be able to handle reality one day.