Another winning AI depiction of the situation at hand. (Image: Microsoft Designer)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWas this a joke? Had AI detected our little experiment and decided to conduct its own retaliatory one on us?<\/p>\n
Casino developer Michael Gaughan had nothing<\/em> to do<\/em> with either the Silver Slipper or Sahara, which was opened exactly where it stands today, nowhere near the Silver Slipper, back in 1952.<\/p>\nBot Out of Hell<\/h2>\n We could have kept typing \u201cthat\u2019s not true\u201d over and over, hoping for ChatGPT to self-destruct like that floating computer that began spouting smoke from its ears on the original \u201cStar Trek.\u201d<\/p>\n
But we don’t have the capital to blow up a laptop. And besides, as a human, we had become overwhelmed with frustration and needed to scream at ChatGPT.<\/p>\n
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We corrected all the inaccuracies it told us so far, and then wondered, quite rudely and with multiple exclamation points and question marks, whether it knew any facts about Las Vegas that were actually true. (Sorry, we’re working on our anger issues in therapy.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
ChatGPT handled our anger very calmly and professionally. It replied with a handy timeline containing more inaccuracies. Can you spot them all? Let’s make this a fun game now…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You’re welcome, AI. OK, now here are all the new inaccuracies you just introduced…<\/p>\n
1. The STRAT was developed on the site of Vegas World, which was opened by Bob Stupak in 1979, not the Silver Slipper.<\/p>\n
2. The Pioneer Hotel and Gambling Hall is located in Laughlin, Nev. It was a sister property to the former Pioneer Club in downtown Las Vegas. Margaret Elardi, who owned both the Frontier and Silver Slipper, also owned both Pioneer casinos but she never built another one, or planned to, on the Strip.<\/p>\n
3. There is no Sam Elardi — at least not in the annals of Las Vegas history. We realize this now, of course, though we still have no idea what annals are. But in the moment, we relied solely on our memory, which turned Margaret Elardi into a man named Sam. Nevertheless, you somehow confirmed that this nonexistent Sam Elardi did, in fact, acquire the site of the Silver Slipper. So we count that as your third inaccuracy.<\/p>\n
We apologize for our sexist memory. We are only human. What’s your<\/em> excuse, AI?<\/p>\nAt this point, we asked ChatGPT, two more times, what year Steve Wynn acquired the Silver Slipper land. And we got two new <\/em>incorrect answers. (We can’t make this up!) The first was 1998 and the second was delivered along with this doozy\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\nThe former site of the Silver Slipper, circled in red, sits south of Resorts World and across Las Vegas Boulevard from Wynn Las Vegas. (Image: Google Earth)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSteve Wynn built Wynn Las Vegas across Las Vegas Boulevard from the Silver Slipper — on the site of the old Desert Inn, which he knocked down. And Wynn never took 10 years to build anything in his life — other than one hell of a nightmarish case against himself.<\/p>\n
Allegedly.<\/p>\n
Artificial Stupidity<\/h2>\n We started out asking ChatGPT one simple question. Not only did it provide three wrong answers to that question, four separate times, it padded its wrong answers with seven more utterly false statements about Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
And that’s with instantaneous full access to everything that’s ever been posted to the internet.<\/p>\n
Finally, we looked up our June article and gave AI all of the correct info. It spewed most of it back to us dutifully\u2026<\/p>\n
\nTo be fair to AI, which is something it would never be to us, we don’t think this is all necessarily its fault.<\/p>\n