AI generated Covid-19 news?

Here's something I just tried - type in any 3 or 4 digit number at random, followed by 'new cases' in the search engine of your choice (I've tried Google, and DuckDuckGO) - The search result finds at least one Covid-19 related article or 'news' story quoting the exact 'random' number that you just typed in.

seriously, is that possible, or is the inference that the news is AI generated based on the number you typed in?

Or have there been that many news articles about that many places, with so many different amounts of new cases that all numbers are covered...?!

a reply to: CrastneyJPR

It seems more likely that the algorithm is effectively ignoring the random numbers and focusing on "new cases" which, understandably, would generate results based upon current trends, which would focus largely on Covid-19.

This seems to be something that has been "discovered" recently.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Search engines are designed to bring current topics to the top of the list. "New cases" does not imply luggage, currently.

Try searching "new leprosy cases."

a reply to: CrastneyJPR

Have you really tried every number between 100 and 9,999?

I'm using DDG. I started at 9,999. By "9,994 new cases", nothing.

I stopped after that.

originally posted by: Phage
This seems to be something that has been "discovered" recently.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Search engines are designed to bring current topics to the top of the list. "New cases" does not imply luggage, currently.

Try searching "new leprosy cases."

I searched "new leprosy cases" from the last 24 hours, and the fifth suggestion was-

Covid-19 update in Nigeria.

someone on the other thread posted a good reply; basically there are lots of new cases every day in many countries for the past 5 months. it is therefore quite likely that your random number has at some point been a value somewhere for new Covid 19 cases.
the Cv19 thing was expected if you type 'new cases' - the bit in question was if the numbers had happened or if it was fake news being created to match the number you've typed in. but as above it's more likely that your random number has occured.
I shall report back to my friend on FB who posted this, and explain statistics and basic mathematics to him!

I cant believe people are really having this much trouble logicing this out.

There are thousands of reporting regions reporting new cases since March.

That's many thousands a day, each being indexed by Google.

A user comes along and searches, and of course somewhere, in the past few months has reported that number of cases.

It's been eye opening just how many sheep this exercise in logic has exposed lately



a reply to: CrastneyJPR

a reply to: solve
Not me.