LLM Slop and SEO SPAM Take Us Further Away From Facts (the Case of IBM Layoffs)
Two weeks ago: R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
I've been trying to understand what goes on at IBM because there are many layoffs going on there (days ago people said the layoffs in Canada still went on after months of recess). Hours ago somebody wrote about the above (IBM in southern US): "No, the Dallas office is not closing. Also, there is a new round of RTO coming, to be announced next week."
Another new comment: "Only the Barfield office is closing for now in Atlanta. All people going to Barfield are relocating to the Brookhaven office which is the last office in Atlanta."
Some of these can impact Red Hat as well. Red Hat after bluewashing [1, 2, 3, 4] is indistinguishable from IBM. Red Hat does not retain much of its own identity, so "IBM layoffs" include Red Hat.
We recently wrote about how information about layoffs was impacted by LLM slop [1, 2, 3]. For each real report there can be 10 fake ones, "derived" from the real one (LLM plagiarism).
"Google News" is terrible these days. It's full of LLM slop, such as the following: (it says "Windows, Linux, and ESXi"; it was LLM slop made for visibility with a slop image)
Don't be mistaken, the above is a fake 'article' and it reaffirms the dead Internet theory. It impacts Google too. To quote: "In 2024, Google reported that its search results were being inundated with websites that "feel like they were created for search engines instead of people". In correspondence with Gizmodo, a Google spokesperson acknowledged the role of generative AI in the rapid proliferation of such content and that it could displace more valuable human-made alternatives. Bots using LLMs are anticipated to increase the amount of spam, and run the risk of creating a situation where bots interacting with each other create "self-replicating prompts" that result in loops only human users could disrupt."
So anyway, I was trying to use "Google News" to see if someone had reported on IBM layoffs and this is what I got:
These clickbait titles are becoming annoying, scattering unrelated names and brands for SEO spam.
What is this article about? TikTok.
The Web is in a terrible shape. Wikipedia says: "The dead Internet theory has two main components: that organic human activity on the web has been displaced by bots and algorithmically curated search results, and that state actors are doing this in a coordinated effort to manipulate the human population."
Or to waste this population's time. █