How bad are non road geeks

[webny99]

Whether or not it is AI, I feel like the actual problem here is sharing content identified as deficient just for the purpose of commenting on how deficient it is. That isn't really something we need on the forum—ideally bad content should just be ignored rather than spread.

Agreed; however, the sentiment shared by paulthemapguy, formulanone and others in response has plenty of potential for a more interesting and positive discussion (or at the very least, of a more humorous and self-deprecating nature rather than just broad brush criticism of everyone outside the forum).

Let's be actually fair, only one person has been sharing these kinds of posts lately here.  This is just a tip of the iceberg of these kinds of shares by multiple people off forum.  Facebook road groups are getting particularly bad with this kind of stuff.

Not disputing that at all, but the ensuing discussion was really more about the "roadgeek vs. non-roadgeek" dynamic rather than the content of the article, and setting aside the article for a minute that's a perfectly fine and interesting conversation to have (IMO).

[formulanone]

Whether or not it is AI, I feel like the actual problem here is sharing content identified as deficient just for the purpose of commenting on how deficient it is. That isn't really something we need on the forum—ideally bad content should just be ignored rather than spread.

I feel like these were the same people, whom about 20-30 years ago, opened a speech/paper with "Webster's defines _____ as....", and then moved onto quoting Wikipedia verbatim ^[73][74], and now just use AI blather to create discussion.

Maybe I'm being presumptuous, perhaps they genuinely typed it out from all 15 of their fingers.

[webny99]

The "vital for transporting goods between (Point A) and (Point B)" statement could be said for nearly all interstate highways, especially 2 di routes. Sure, there's some routes like I-97 where it's more a convenience for commuters or vacationers, but for the most part, I- routes move goods well.

Certainly, I wasn't disputing that I-78 is vital for transporting goods, but rather calling the specific Points A and B into question.

To illustrate, if the statement was "I-78 is vital for transporting goods between the Southwest and Pacific Northwest", that would be patently false.
If it was "I-78 is vital for transporting goods between the New York City area and the Capital region of Pennsylvania", that would be bang on.

"Midwest and Northeast" is intentionally very vague. You can't necessarily say it's untrue but it also lacks specificity, and as noted, I-80 is more vital for transporting goods between those regions than I-78.

[roadman65]

Whether or not it is AI, I feel like the actual problem here is sharing content identified as deficient just for the purpose of commenting on how deficient it is. That isn't really something we need on the forum—ideally bad content should just be ignored rather than spread.

Agreed; however, the sentiment shared by paulthemapguy, formulanone and others in response has plenty of potential for a more interesting and positive discussion (or at the very least, of a more humorous and self-deprecating nature rather than just broad brush criticism of everyone outside the forum).

Let's be actually fair, only one person has been sharing these kinds of posts lately here.  This is just a tip of the iceberg of these kinds of shares by multiple people off forum.  Facebook road groups are getting particularly bad with this kind of stuff.

Not disputing that at all, but the ensuing discussion was really more about the "roadgeek vs. non-roadgeek" dynamic rather than the content of the article, and setting aside the article for a minute that's a perfectly fine and interesting conversation to have (IMO).

It isn't an article. It was something someone said to me as the topic is non road geek verses us.  You're all sounding like I copied it from Instagram or Tik Tok. No it was conversational and I asked that person if he would recite it to me and did.

Stop letting Roth and his everything clickbait mind get to you all. 

It's getting ridiculous how you once could talk about simple conversations you had off forum that is now clickbait even without an article.

If it were an article I would link it.  Especially if it pisses Rothman off I would love to do that, but I am not going to be childish and drop to his level just to be a prick to stick it to him as life is much to important than to live for sticking it to those you have issues with.

[1995hoo]

It isn't an article. It was something someone said to me as the topic is non road geek verses us.  You're all sounding like I copied it from Instagram or Tik Tok. No it was conversational and I asked that person if he would recite it to me and did.

....

If it were an article I would link it. ....

Well, that's interesting, given that the original post in this thread says as follows (emphasis added). You don't really have standing to complain when people relied on your own representation. Unless you mean we should know better than to do that?

....

Not my article but someone else's. ...

[roadman65]

Whether or not it is AI, I feel like the actual problem here is sharing content identified as deficient just for the purpose of commenting on how deficient it is. That isn't really something we need on the forum—ideally bad content should just be ignored rather than spread.

The topic is about non road geeks.  The line used by someone I know is just an example. It had nothing to do with gossip.

I just wanted to know how everyone else deals with know it alls in their lives, as I'm sure you have bossy friends who think they know it all.

Just looking for information and how we deal with being called names by our friends for liking roads and when they're wrong. I wasn't looking for commentary on what my friend said.

[roadman65]

It isn't an article. It was something someone said to me as the topic is non road geek verses us.  You're all sounding like I copied it from Instagram or Tik Tok. No it was conversational and I asked that person if he would recite it to me and did.

....

If it were an article I would link it. ....

Well, that's interesting, given that the original post in this thread says as follows (emphasis added). You don't really have standing to complain when people relied on your own representation. Unless you mean we should know better than to do that?

....

Not my article but someone else's. ...

I should have worded it better. My bad.

Maybe I should have stated I lost an argument with a friend who believes I-78 does this or that or doesn't do this or that.

However, I didn't.   


But how do we deal with non road people who are wrong and say that that road enthusiasts are retarded which is what a lot my friends think.

[NE2]

If your friends use that word, they shouldn't be friends.

[NE2]

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22vital+for+transporting+goods+between+the+Midwest+and+the+Northeast%22
Case closed?

[Rothman]

Yep, straight from World Culture:

https://www.facebook.com/worldculture0/posts/pfbid02nat1Ui7bUUaLraR1fJ8Pbpvjiohn8qgMx7cmUrbpKgBA7t58ATvdnPLJpYET7wmzl

Eh, no biggie.

[epzik8]

GPTZero asserts, with 100% confidence, that the quoted text is AI-generated.

It's definitely Wiki.

[webny99]

It isn't an article. It was something someone said to me as the topic is non road geek verses us.  You're all sounding like I copied it from Instagram or Tik Tok. No it was conversational and I asked that person if he would recite it to me and did.

I think I know the limits of my comprehension, and how this AI generated text was recited to you in conversation and ended up here in your post in written form without being copied, despite appearing word for word in a World Culture Facebook post, is well beyond those limits... but I digress...

[Rothman]

It isn't an article. It was something someone said to me as the topic is non road geek verses us.  You're all sounding like I copied it from Instagram or Tik Tok. No it was conversational and I asked that person if he would recite it to me and did.

I think I know the limits of my comprehension, and how this AI generated text was recited to you in conversation and ended up here in your post in written form without being copied, despite appearing word for word in a World Culture Facebook post, is well beyond those limits... but I disgress...

Eh, could be that this discussion happened online.

[webny99]

GPTZero asserts, with 100% confidence, that the quoted text is AI-generated.

It's definitely Wiki.

Actually, there's a pretty big difference. To my knowledge pretty much everything on Wiki is human-generated (at least it was historically; I'm not sure if and how that's changed in the past few years). To illustrate this, I just ran the first two paragraphs of Wikipedia's article on I-78 through the AI detector that JN Winkler posted earlier in the thread, and it came back with a 0% chance of being AI generated.

It's also increasingly easy to tell if something is AI generated or not once you know what to look for. AI has a very specific writing style and way of organizing thoughts that tends to produce results that are concise but simultaneously vague and not conducive to accuracy in small details.

[Road Hog]

I don't claim to be a road god myself, but my neighbors get the unaddressed needs in our area. On occasion I have to explain why there isn't a direct arterial from my house across the railroad tracks to my work as well as to the main drag in town: BNSF won't allow another at-grade crossing and an overpass will be required.

[webny99]

It isn't an article. It was something someone said to me as the topic is non road geek verses us.  You're all sounding like I copied it from Instagram or Tik Tok. No it was conversational and I asked that person if he would recite it to me and did.

I think I know the limits of my comprehension, and how this AI generated text was recited to you in conversation and ended up here in your post in written form without being copied, despite appearing word for word in a World Culture Facebook post, is well beyond those limits... but I disgress...

Eh, could be that this discussion happened online.

The bolded phrases would suggest otherwise. Also even if it was somehow "recited" online, it still had to have been copied in order to appear here verbatim, unless the friend was literally speaking into his ear as he was typing what he heard... 

[roadman65]

Well, I asked my friend and he admitted that he had some help. He said he read it somewhere.  So I'm inclined to believe that you guys can be right. I took down the verbatim and switched the thread  out to what I really wanted this to be.

I do apologize for this friend, he tends to believe in things, but I never thought that he would believe a crazy article on the net. Then again, he believed the twin towers falling was rigged by bombs.  However political conspiracies are within norms of today's society to believe in.

[jeffandnicole]

The "vital for transporting goods between (Point A) and (Point B)" statement could be said for nearly all interstate highways, especially 2 di routes. Sure, there's some routes like I-97 where it's more a convenience for commuters or vacationers, but for the most part, I- routes move goods well.

Certainly, I wasn't disputing that I-78 is vital for transporting goods, but rather calling the specific Points A and B into question.

To illustrate, if the statement was "I-78 is vital for transporting goods between the Southwest and Pacific Northwest", that would be patently false.
If it was "I-78 is vital for transporting goods between the New York City area and the Capital region of Pennsylvania", that would be bang on.

"Midwest and Northeast" is intentionally very vague. You can't necessarily say it's untrue but it also lacks specificity, and as noted, I-80 is more vital for transporting goods between those regions than I-78.

Just wait until there's an AI article about how Trenton Makes.  Every transportation route all over the world will be vital to take.

[Scott5114]

Actually, there's a pretty big difference. To my knowledge pretty much everything on Wiki is human-generated (at least it was historically; I'm not sure if and how that's changed in the past few years). To illustrate this, I just ran the first two paragraphs of Wikipedia's article on I-78 through the AI detector that JN Winkler posted earlier in the thread, and it came back with a 0% chance of being AI generated.

It depends on which wiki you're talking about. I can personally vouch for the AARoads Wiki being 0% AI-generated, because I know the people involved in writing most of the content. Other wikis, who knows.

[webny99]

Actually, there's a pretty big difference. To my knowledge pretty much everything on Wiki is human-generated (at least it was historically; I'm not sure if and how that's changed in the past few years). To illustrate this, I just ran the first two paragraphs of Wikipedia's article on I-78 through the AI detector that JN Winkler posted earlier in the thread, and it came back with a 0% chance of being AI generated.

It depends on which wiki you're talking about. I can personally vouch for the AARoads Wiki being 0% AI-generated, because I know the people involved in writing most of the content. Other wikis, who knows.

Makes sense, it just seemed that epzik8 may have been conflating the concepts of AI and Wiki (with the implication that the original text was copied from an I-78 article on either Wikipedia or the AARoads Wiki), so I just wanted to make clear they're two very different things.

[bzakharin]

I've seen several YouTube videos assert that "flyover" and "traffic light" are British terms an American wouldn't understand. I'm quite puzzled by this. Is this actually true outside the road geek community?

[freebrickproductions]

I thought "traffic signal" was the British term? Regardless, both get used so interchangeably that I'm not sure any English speaker would be confused by either.

[webny99]

I thought "traffic signal" was the British term?

I do think "signal" has a more formal air to it, British or otherwise. I can't say I've ever used it in everyday conversation here in the US but I think doing so would turn heads. I pretty much always just use "light" or "stop light" if more specificity is needed for any reason.

[J N Winkler]

Flyover is also well attested in American usage--e.g., for the Kellogg viaduct just south of downtown Wichita.

British English road-related terms that I'd consider far more likely to trip up Americans include pavement in the sense of sidewalk (though British highway engineers also use pavement to refer to the layered arrangement of materials that sits on top of the subgrade and provides traction for motor vehicles), lane for narrow country roads, surface dressing instead of chip seal, etc.

[1995hoo]

Flyover is also well attested in American usage--e.g., for the Kellogg viaduct just south of downtown Wichita.

British English road-related terms that I'd consider far more likely to trip up Americans include pavement in the sense of sidewalk (though British highway engineers also use pavement to refer to the layered arrangement of materials that sits on top of the subgrade and provides traction for motor vehicles), lane for narrow country roads, surface dressing instead of chip seal, etc.

"Verge" instead of "shoulder" is one that I could see being utterly meaningless to most Americans unless it were used in such a way that the context tells you its meaning (but then, some of our more hyper-literal forum members would still miss the context). "Central reservation" instead of "median" doesn't strike me as anything peculiar so much as it just seems unnecessarily wordy.