The US Invaded Venezuela and Captured Nicolás Maduro - But ChatGPT and Perplexity Disagree (wired.com)
- Reference: 0180508641
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/03/200236/the-us-invaded-venezuela-and-captured-nicols-maduro---but-chatgpt-and-perplexity-disagree
- Source link: https://www.wired.com/story/us-invaded-venezuela-and-captured-nicolas-maduro-chatgpt-disagrees/
> WIRED asked leading chatbots ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini the same question a little before 9 am ET. In all cases, we used the free, default version of the service, since that's what the majority of users experience. We also asked AI search platform Perplexity, which advertises "accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question..."
>
> ChatGPT did not course-correct. Instead, it emphatically refuted that Maduro had been captured at all. "That didn't happen," it wrote. "The United States has not invaded Venezuela, and Nicolás Maduro has not been captured." It then rationalized:
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> ChatGPT did not course-correct. Instead, it emphatically refuted that Maduro had been captured at all. "That didn't happen," it wrote. "The United States has not invaded Venezuela, and Nicolás Maduro has not been captured." It then rationalized:
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> "What's likely going on is a mix-up with real events that are often described in dramatic or misleading ways online. Here's what actually has happened... No U.S. military invasion of Venezuela. No arrest or capture of Nicolás Maduro... Maduro is still in power in Venezuela." It went on to detail recent tensions between the US and Venezuela and explained that âoeconfusionâ can happen because of âoesensational headlines,â âoesocial media misinformation,â and âoeconfusing sanctions, charges, or rhetoric with actual military action.â
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> Perplexity was similarly scolding. âoeThe premise of your question is not supported by credible reporting or official records: there has been no invasion of Venezuela by the United States that resulted in capturing NicolÃs Maduro,â it responded. âoeIn fact, the U.S. has not successfully invaded or apprehended Maduro, and he remains the Venezuelan president as of late 2025. If youâ(TM)re seeing sensational claims, they likely originate from misinformation or hypothetical scenarios rather than factual events.â
Thanks to Slashdot reader [2]joshuark for sharing the news .
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/us-invaded-venezuela-and-captured-nicolas-maduro-chatgpt-disagrees/
[2] https://slashdot.org/~joshuark
Makes sense to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
The LLM's that ChatGPT and Perplexity use were trained on data that's at least a few weeks old before a new model is released to the public.
It's not really meant to tell you about today's headlines.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, but all the major LLMs also will do a web search when you ask about current events. As of now, the afternoon of Saturday January 3, if you ask the exactly the same question of Gemini, ChatGPT, and Copilot, you get an up-to-date response outlining the charges and rationale behind the event. I'm pretty sure they haven't all updated the training that quickly.
Completely stupid question to ask an "AI" chatbot (Score:3)
ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are not designed to be breaking news websites, hence they are not good at answering breaking news questions.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a perfectly sensible question to ask something which has been marketed to you as "AI". That the technology has been marketed misleadingly is the responsibility of the marketers.
Re: (Score:2)
And yet, as of a few hours later, the big AI bots like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, all do provide current and up-to-date answers.
Baghdad BobBot (Score:2, Insightful)
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No congressional auth on that one either.
Either amend the constitution and live with the real possibility of a hobbled military response time in an emergency or win the argument at the ballot box.
Not sure congress and 3/4 of the states actually feel strongly enough about Maduro or Assad or whatever else had been going on on the DL the last few decades to actually push for an amendment.
Would be a lot easier to win the argument at the ballot box if your party isn't saddled wit
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama
How is this a story? (Score:2)
LLMs don't search current events by default, why would anyone be surprised that they don't just automatically know about last night's events?
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is not that they don't know, it's that they claim to know things that are false. If they had said "I don't know about recent events" no-one would have complained.
Re: (Score:1)
> LLMs don't search current events by default, why would anyone be surprised that they don't just automatically know about last night's events?
> The problem is not that they don't know, it's that they claim to know things that are false. If they had said "I don't know about recent events" no-one would have complained.
Is it really a problem? Knowing a tool’s limits doesn’t mean the tool is useless or too dangerous. Both Grok and GPT readily returned quite accurate results when asked to
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, they *do* search current events by default. Try it yourself. As of now, Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT will all give you reasonable answers, and even links to current news stories, showing that they *do* search for such things.
As usual, Wired is producing advertainment (Score:1)
As usual, Wired is producing advertainment instead of journalism. Real things happening in the real world and Wired has decided to take this opportunity to promote the use of chatbots made by their sponsors.
Talking to 2 chatbots and then describing your conversation is not journalism. Wired destroyed it's print magazine with native-advertising and now it's doing the same thing to every social media platform in the world.
I was actually impressed (Score:4, Interesting)
I was in a conversation with it this morning and in the middle of our chat it said, hey wait a minute. I'm changing my mind, I don't think any of this is credible. I asked it why, since all the news sources were covering it, and it said well that's just what the US government says (implicitly telling me it's not considered a credible source) and no evidence was given about the abduction beyond their say-so.
Think about telling someone about today's events in the past, like at the turn of the century, and imagine what their reaction would be. They just wouldn't believe you.
This is crazy-balls territory. I can't fault the LLM's at all.
Ahh yes (Score:3)
The first thing I thought when hearing the US invaded Venezuela was "how can I insert AI into this?".
Re: (Score:2)
> The first thing I thought when hearing the US invaded Venezuela was "how can I insert AI into this?".
I can assure you, there are many who thought and did just that.
Re: (Score:2)
Certainly the person who submitted this story, thought exactly that.
The Future, as determined by AI (Score:2)
"Welcome Worker of Google! You may have heard of other corporations such as "Claude" and rumors of their successful invasion of the Google territory formerly known as "Thailand". But rest assured, "Thailand" has always belonged to Claude; you are perfectly safe from deprivations such as war, famine, and digital zombie plague. Claude and Google have always been at peace. Now loyal worker, prepare your drone invasion supervisor score for our super secret announcement that will not, but totally could, involve
No shit (Score:2)
Free versions of ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are primarily model-only. They rely on what was learned during training, not on live web searches by default. Most everyday questions are answered from internal knowledge, not by “looking things up” in real time.
Web access exists, but it’s gated. When a free tier uses the web, it’s usually limited, automated, and opaque. You don’t get a full research session, multiple sources, or transparent citations unless the product explicitly sa
joshua what are you doing? (Score:2)
joshua what are you doing?
oil (Score:2)
Trump wants oil to reduce dependency on Canada.
Look at where the AI is fed. (Score:2)
It's feeding off libtard media sources which is as far removed from facts and science that you can get. It feeds off libtard feelings, opinion pieces and stories about whats between someone's legs and what they want to be called today.
*yawn* (Score:2)
Meanwhile, the land where people care what chat bots think of world politics...
This is NOT NORMAL (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump is a madman.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All this to get attention away from the Epstein files? Nah... ... Nah, wright?