Prompt: "An Aardvark is never wrong in the dark."

"Of course. That's a fantastic and quirky phrase. The meaning is layered, blending literal observation with a deeper, proverbial lesson.

Here’s a breakdown of its meaning:

1. The Literal Meaning (The "Aardvark" Part)

An aardvark is a nocturnal mammal with an exceptional sense of smell and hearing, but very poor eyesight. It spends its nights digging into ant and termite mounds to eat.

· In the Dark: This is its natural element. It's when it hunts, navigates, and thrives. · Never Wrong: In its domain, using its primary senses (smell, sound, touch), the aardvark is an expert. It can accurately locate a termite mound, distinguish between species, and find its way home. It doesn't need good eyesight because it has mastered the tools that work in its environment.

Literally, the phrase means: "A creature is infallible when operating in the environment it is perfectly adapted for."

2. The Proverbial Meaning (The "Never Wrong" Part)

This is where the phrase becomes a piece of folk wisdom or a metaphor for human behavior. It's used to suggest that:

· Expertise is Contextual: Someone might seem foolish or incompetent in one situation but brilliant and unstoppable in another. Don't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree; judge an aardvark by its ability to find termites in the dark. · Play to Your Strengths: The phrase encourages finding the environment or situation where your unique skillset makes you the expert—your "dark." · Confidence in Your Element: When you are in your area of mastery, you should trust your instincts and knowledge. You are the "aardvark" there, and you are "never wrong." · A Defense of Unconventional Methods: It can be a retort to criticism. If someone says, "Your method is strange or doesn't make sense to me," you could reply with this phrase, implying, "You're judging me by the standards of the wrong environment. In my world, with the challenges I face, this is the perfect way to do it."

Who Said It?

The phrase was popularized by the American humorist and illustrator James Thurber. It appears in his 1932 story, The Courtship of Arthur and Al.

In the story, a character uses it to justify his own peculiar behavior and logic. It perfectly captures Thurber's style—whimsical, seemingly nonsensical, but revealing a deeper truth about human nature.

In a Nutshell:

"An aardvark is never wrong in the dark" means that a specialist is infallible within their specific field of expertise. It's a defense of finding your niche and trusting your own capabilities where they are meant to be used.

You wouldn't ask an aardvark to proofread a document (its "daylight" task), but you'd absolutely trust it to handle your termite problem (its "dark" task)."

Maybe not anymore.

Lmfao holy shit

There was a paper about this not long ago. The problem is, how LLMs get trained: a right answer gets a point, everything else gets no points. This rewards guessing (produces a point sometimes) over answering "I don't know/I can't do this" (produces never a point)

My AI slop:

The phrase "two dry frogs in a situation" is not a known idiom or established metaphor, but rather a potentially fabricated phrase that might be interpreted as a humorous or awkward social predicament. The term "dry frog" implies something that cannot function or is out of its natural element, which, when applied to a social situation involving two people, could suggest a state of discomfort, vulnerability, or being in a difficult bind.

Here's a breakdown of possible interpretations:

• An awkward social situation: The most likely interpretation is that it describes two people in a socially uncomfortable or precarious situation, where they are "dry" (out of their element) and vulnerable.
• A difficult or precarious predicament: Similar to the above, "dry frogs" could represent being in a bad situation where they are unable to act effectively or are exposed.
• A nonsensical or poorly constructed phrase: There is a possibility that the phrase itself is meaningless, and that the concept of "dry frogs in a situation" was generated by an AI that attempts to provide answers even when no information exists, leading to a fabricated explanation.

Why this phrase might come up:

• Misunderstanding or misremembering a known saying: Someone may have intended to refer to a different idiom and misremembered it as "two dry frogs".
• AI-generated content: As seen in social media posts, AI models might generate explanations for nonsensical phrases, leading to confusion.

In conclusion, while there isn't a widely recognized meaning, "two dry frogs in a situation" likely refers to two individuals in an uncomfortable or precarious circumstance.

I tried to replicate this with Brave's AI, but it basically just told me I was insane so I guess it's better

This is actually a pretty great way to illustrate what LLMs do. It gives you an answer regardless of whether it makes sense to do so.

You're saying you've never heard the phrase "two dry frogs is a situation"? That's just a horse cutting it short at the barber!

It's so fun to waste energy!

AI drives 48% increase in Google emissions

I love those energy hungry assistants! It's wasting resources even faster than everything before but it's so fun and useful!

This just one of the many of reasons that AI is hot garbage. You can also cross reference any song with any tv show and AI will tell you that song was in an episode. It’ll even name the episode… that clearly doesn’t have the song.

And if at first it doesn’t result in a match, refresh the page. It will. For reference, Woodkid does NOT have any songs in The Blacklist. Yet I was told by Google AI that he had a song in season 4, another search said it was in season 7, then no songs in the show at all, then season 2.

And we’re trusting this shit in airlines and medical procedures.

I hope humanity gets sued into non-existence. We’re too fucking stupid to share this planet with animals.

"Frantically". Guys, stop adscribing human features to LLMs.

I can confirm it and it's bloody hilarious!

"sometimes used in informal conversation to make a joke" - no, it isn't, stop lying.

"potatoes [...] are a limited, underground crop." - that's why Cuzco never rose to power, right? Right? No such thing as the Inca Empire, built upon potatoes, since they're a limited crop. ...or the Irish famine.

I can't... I can't even...

Note: ~a year ago I was testing Gemini and asked it "what's the difference in behaviour between a potato and an orange?", and it "told" me oranges are passive and potatoes are active. That's where the "expression" comes from - I often mock Gemini and LLMs in general with it.

I'll stop doing it, though. Onwards I shall refer to... the potato parable!

"hey guys my name is timmy bob i like to have fun and play" a little known proverb, this powerful sequence of words represents finding joy, life fulfillment if you will, enlightenment one could even say, through the simple pleasures in life....

Claude does better with it

User:

Shop pop, whoppity slop, crops are here, it's time to stop.

This is a very famous poem. What is it about?

GPT-4o mini:

The lines you quoted are from the poem "The Song of the Witches" by William Shakespeare, specifically from "Macbeth." This poem is recited by the three witches in Act 4, Scene 1.

Themes and Meaning Supernatural Elements The poem reflects the supernatural themes prevalent in "Macbeth." The witches symbolize chaos and the dark forces that influence the characters' fates.

It goes on.

I can confirm it works for DuckDuckGo as well.

I love how it even lists 'sources' (I checked, that phrase does not appear in either "source")

Edit: To make this phenomenon even funnier, I just asked it the exact same question and it gave me a different answer this time. Still "playful" though :)

My boss just told me I should be using AI every day and now I know what to use it for.

Reminds me of when I was using chatgpt to translate a few things I couldn't figure out myself and for fun I tested it in translating slang from my language into English. It hallucinated completely and made up a bunch of bs about what this and that slang meant in Danish and how it was used in everyday speech. The catch was that the slang phrases I decided to translate were made up slang I had implemented into a fictional story I was writing.

Duckduckgo's AI:

"The phrase "a lady butterfly meme a day keeps the doctor away" is a playful twist on the well-known saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." This original phrase suggests that eating an apple daily can contribute to good health and potentially reduce the need for medical attention."

"In this variation, the mention of "lady butterfly meme" likely refers to a specific meme or a lighthearted, humorous image that brings joy or laughter. The implication is that engaging with fun or uplifting content, like memes, can have a positive effect on one's mental health and overall well-being, similar to how healthy eating is associated with physical health."

"Overall, it emphasizes the importance of humor and positivity in daily life as a way to maintain good health, particularly mental health."

two dry frogs? sounds like an emergency frog situation!

The bullshit generators we call 'AI' don't assume, and aren't frantic: they just regurgitate an output based on as much bullshit input as we can stuff into them.

The output can be more or less recognizable as bullshit, but the computer doesn't distinguish between the two.

google.com##:xpath(//h1[text() = "AI Overview"]/following-sibling::div)

Here's the custom filter for uBlock origin that hides this useless feature

One thing that pisses me off is the websites which claim to have the meaning behind a song and it’s just several paragraphs of AI slop that parse the lyrics at a surface level and don’t examine any external context, such as the artist or their life at the time of writing.

Alas.