AI Says Eat a Rock a Day

Hint: Don't Eat Rocks

Hey real quick, don’t eat rocks.

Not even teeny tiny ones, like pebbles. Certainly not boulders. In fact, stay clear of sand and dirt. You know what, if you can help it, don’t digest any sediment whatsoever.

There’s this meme going around about showing how awful AI can be. In it, Google AI attempts to answer the question, “Can humans eat rocks,” and provides the following answer:

Yes, yes you can. At least one small rock a day.

Turns out the AI answer part is actually true. Google AI did in fact provide that as an answer, citing a Berkeley geologist and claiming that rocks are vital sources of vitamins and minerals. That’s a real thing.

The actual answer, as I referenced early, is zero. You can eat exactly zero rocks.

I was curious about the AI answer though so I dug a little bit. Turns out Google AI grabbed that information from a legitimate geology blog. BUT, that blog published the article about eating rocks as a joke from the satire site, The Onion! Trust me, the original blog does not want you to eat rocks.

But ironically, because Google AI picked up the satire from a legit source, that in itself created a search trail which didn’t exist until someone tried to search for the AI version of it. Circles within circles!

To summarize, eating rocks will…

Hurt you when you poop

Break your teeth

Tear apart your digestive system

Kill you

So, regardless of what Google AI tells you, the proper amount of rocks to eat remains zero. Got it?

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Tomorrow, Chapter Five of “Where There’s Smoke” will drop! We hope you’ve been enjoying this hiking memoir so far, with a new chapter coming out each Wednesday. Can you guess what Fire Tower we’re hiking to tomorrow based on this picture?