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I noticed something similar on websites like Reddit. I've come across an answer for a question on something I'm well educated on, and their answer is definitively wrong but "sounds correct". The reddit community will up vote them, and even down vote people who try correcting them.
But then later on I would come across a post on a topic I don't know, and I'm inclined to believe the answers because they sound right and there's a group consensus backing it up.
Yeap..... Especially with any topic where there's a big hobbyist community.
I work in orthotics and prosthetics for a university hospital as both an educator and a healthcare provider. I can't tell you how many times I've been down voted by 3d printer enthusiasts for critiquing untrained and uneducated people fitting children with medical devices that can severely injure or debilitate them.
Hey man, you’re harshing my good vibes. I’m gonna have to downvote you, those kids future health outcomes be damned.
My hobby > The children
Yeah it is really frustrating to try and educate the reddit hivemind about your field of expertise.
They like things that sound good and plausible and fit their biases, not necessarily where the scientific consensus points to.
It's not specific to Reddit, you'll see that in any community, probably because we are social animals.
In real life if I give people my academic title they’ll trust me more than the random person who is arguing with me about basic facts in my field of expertise. For some reason, not on reddit though
On an anonymous platform like reddit there's no verification. Unless you cite what you're saying one person is as likely an expert as anyone else.
This is my experience with AI, specifically ChatGPT.
If I ask it questions about how to do technical things I already know how to do, ChatGPT comes off as wildly inept often times.
However, if I ask it something I don’t know and start working through it’s recommend processes, more often than not I end up where I want to end up. Even with missteps along the way.
This was a concern of mine with companies training AI on reddit. Both reddit and AI struggle with confidently providing false info in a way that sounds true, so training AI on reddit seems like it would really compound this issue.
Don't be too scared but... The same thing is happening on Wikipedia. I realized it when I tried to correct something benign on an article (a motorcycle being the first road legal model from the brand in 40 years) and pointed at an article confirming what I was correcting (article about another model released by the same brand 5 years prior that was a road legal model) and my edit got deleted.
I then went looking and found an article by an expert on a subject that argued with people on Wikipedia for over a year before just giving up because they wouldn't accept that a bunch of sources all quoting one wrong source didn't mean the information was true.
I get this with 5-10 minute educational type youtube videos. When it’s a topic I know, it’s obvious they just slightly changed the Wikipedia entry, or took google result headlines. But when I don’t know I’m tempted to parrot the information without checking it
I get this with wikipedia articles. I have to force myself to click through the links provided and check the reliability of the sources. They're usually fine, but every once in awhile you find something questionable snuck in there.
do you correct or mark it as incorrect then? Because I usually never go for the sources hoping people did it for me... yeah I'm a lazy ignorant
No, if I'm on wikipedia for something, I never really feel confident enough in my own knowledge to actually do anything significant. I just mentally mark the article as questionable as I read.
And when I know something well, I'm never looking at its wikipedia entry. lol
Maybe I should though.
People upvote you if you sound right or confident and you’re early to post. Later posters don’t get the same number of eyeballs on them as earlier posts so any correction won’t (generally) receive the same amount of votes.
No ur wrong