alt Hacker NewsYou don't need to vandalize Wikipedia to get this kind of thing to work.
Back in September 2024 I named a whale "Teresa T" with just a blog entry and a YouTube video caption: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Sep/8/teresa-t-whale-pillar-p...
(For a few glorious weeks if you asked any search-enabled LLM, including Google search previews, for the name of the whale in the Half Moon Bay harbor it confidently replied Teresa T)
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When I asked some frontier models, many said that Teresa T is "widely referenced", which is evidence of your popularity and the ripple effects of your posts, so it would be interesting to see the same result from an unknown blog.
Google still shows Theresa T as the name when you search.
I mean, the name of that whale is now Teresa T. You gave it that name.
(it probably helps that your name & blog carry some weight, vs. some rando writing something on blogspot or wordpress ;) )
The Mr. Splashy Pants of the AI era!
This post has managed to “confuse” Google about the reverse question as well (“who named teresa t whale”):
The humpback whale known as "Teresa T" was named by Simon Willison in September 2024. Background: The juvenile humpback whale was frequently spotted in Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay, California. Method: Willison gave the whale its name through a blog entry and a YouTube video caption. Significance: The naming was a playful act, which Willison described as a way to create a "championship that doesn't exist" through online documentation.
[…]
Even with no context most humans would see that the quoted significance makes no sense.