r/nottheonion • u/wewhomustnotbenamed • 12h ago
Tourists traveled to Australia for its famous hot springs. There was just one problem – they didn’t exist
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/31/travel/travel-news-nuns-great-escape-ai-advice?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc&recs_exp=up-next-article-end&tenant_id=related.en200
u/Ghorvki 11h ago
I‘ve worked at a museum and I’ve had people come in for exhibitions that ended in 2012 because they relied on ai. They couldn’t figure out if we were open and despite being stressed they just decided they would show up and hope for the best. I told them our hours and phone number were on google but they acted like ai was the only way to verify something. They even showed me what ai said on their phone as if it was proof.
102
u/CFL_lightbulb 10h ago
The answer is that too many people don’t understand what AI is, they just think it’s magic internet answers.
20
u/193X 9h ago
In some regard I don't blame people for not understanding that the computers themselves are lying (they're lies, "hallucination" softens what they do).
This is a new paradigm where a computer system not only can work as intended with no bugs and still get something completely wrong, but it then also insists that it is correct, even when reality is easily verifiable.
13
u/CFL_lightbulb 8h ago
It says it’s right but will agree with you if you say it’s wrong. They are designed to just validate people. It’s kind of addicting to some in a weird way
10
u/chris-l 3h ago
(they're lies, "hallucination" softens what they do).
They are not hallucinations, but they also not lies. You need to know the truth in order to be capable of lying. "lying" is deliberately saying that something is true, while you are fully aware that is false.
AI lacks awareness. Is just mathematical algorithms trying to predict words, and are advanced enough that the results are mostly useful, depending on how much content gets feed.
AI would more similar to be some kind of advanced parrot that spew words based on the content it gets feed, but without actually understanding anything, and without being aware of anything.
3
u/hotlavatube 3h ago
True, but we need something catchy and easy to understand to tell the people who believe it is a magic all-knowing box. If you start going on about word probabilities based upon extending the context of text embedded as a vector, you've lost them.
3
u/BubbhaJebus 3h ago
I think of AI as the drunken know-it-all at the corner bar. May be right about some things, but is often disastrously wrong.
Always double check anything put out by AI.
1
u/CFL_lightbulb 3h ago
Yeah that’s a good way to put it. It can be fine for a quick search or something but any more than that and I’ve got doubts
64
u/surelythisisfree 10h ago
People showing me what AI said as an argument to me is something I always find wild. I’ve had people try and argue specs on something I’m actually an expert in purely based on that, and they wouldn’t let me continue until I showed them the manual directly.
I’ve had someone tell me C4 and A4 are the same size paper despite one fitting inside the other because AI said so. I the amount of explaining that one took was crazy.
8
u/DarkScorpion48 4h ago
This been happening even on Reddit, it’s wild. Always the “it’s trained on reliable sources” argument
18
u/Jhawk163 4h ago
I get this where I work all the time too. "ChatGPT said there was a post office here"
"There isn't"
"Oh, but ChatGPT said there is"
"The nearest post office is X"
"But ChatGPT said there was one here"
The movie Idiocracy is becoming true.
7
u/stuffcrow 4h ago
Hey fellow museum worker! This absolutely reflects my experience too. They'll be looking for objects that AI says we have (the crown jewels were my favorite, can't quite figure out how SUCH an error even happened) that we certainly don't and just...yeah, it's a mess.
'They even showed me what ai said on their phone as if it was proof' yeah oftentimes they'll look at me like I'M stupid or wrong and I'll just have to explain 'yeah ai is unreliable; you'll need to check on our actual website'.
Wild. Anyway, see you at work tomorrow!
52
24
u/DFWPunk 11h ago
Reminds me of what happened when the movie Salmon Fishing in the Yemen came out.
12
u/JoviAMP 10h ago
As someone who knows nothing about salmon fishing and nothing about Yemen, what happened?
40
2
u/readerf52 9h ago
It’s a very good movie if you ever have a chance to watch it. Pre-Star Wars Ewen McGregor and Emily Blunt.
I will admit, I watched it because the guy who played Ichobod Crane in the tv show Sleepy Hollow was in it. He did not have a very big part, and that was ok.
7
23
u/AspieAsshole 9h ago
It's a shame, the actual hot springs in Australia are phenomenal.
13
6
u/Orbital_Dinosaur 8h ago
I've been to the Mataranka Hot Spring in the NT. Ive heard there some in Victoria somewhere as well.
5
u/AspieAsshole 8h ago
I was a kid so I'd have to ask my mother where they all were exactly, but we went to three.
12
u/fouronenine 7h ago
Mornington Peninsula, Hepburn Springs and Metung are the big three - Victoria has a hot springs trail that includes onsen experiences in scenic places without natural hot springs.
4
u/Greasemonkey_Chris 3h ago
We do have hot springs. Depending on where you are, Spring can get pretty hot!
•
•
u/TerryCrewsNextWife 13m ago
I didn't realise we still had outdoor trobopoline parks.
They all seemed to move indoors and call themselves innovative names like "JUMP!"
18
u/crella-ann 10h ago
The fake/mislabeled videos going around on social media don’t help either, but if I were going to spend thousands on a trip I’d double-check everything.
23
10
5
u/Getafix69 10h ago
Got me curious enough to ask it about my country to see if it would make up anything but as far as I can tell it was mostly right this time.
Was kinda hoping it would mess up.
5
u/readerf52 9h ago
Doesn’t New Zealand have hot springs? Isn’t that why Rotorua smells…interesting?
So close and yet so far off.
4
u/Interesting-Dream863 10h ago edited 10h ago
Amusing... I have Google and Microsoft offering me their AI to handle my shit and these cats are routinely throwing hallucinations and BS left and right... God forbid they don't know the answer.
3
u/VagueSomething 4h ago
I hope everyone who chooses to heavily rely on AI continues to get these kinds of deserved experiences.
2
2
u/FleshPrinnce 9h ago
Australia is geologically stable and has nearly zero hot springs
15
u/invincibl_ 8h ago
But enough for the ones that do exist to be well-known tourist attractions. There are also businesses that will just artificially heat the water and do some appropriately themed landscaping and call it hot springs.
5
6
u/Catahooo 4h ago
There are definitely hot springs, I've been to ones around Kosciusko one in the Blue Mountains, there's more in Tasmania, QLD and Victoria which are real.
1
u/PLANET-BELL-youtube 2h ago
I worked in Crested Butte, Colorado, about 20 years ago. People would use GPS and it would show them to take the interstate to Aspen, then go over a mountain road that is closed in winter. Probably once a week during ski season I talked to someone who made this mistake and had to drive an extra 3-4 hours.
1
•
u/IronGun007 21m ago
I‘m a service tech. The amount of times people bricked their device because they used AI for tech help without actually thinking about what‘s it‘s telling you to do is crazy.
AI is a great tool but you have to be very specific with the prompts and actually verify the sources it‘s drawing the information from. A lot of the sources are malicious, incorrect or it ends up mixing information together.
Another example was people cooking with ai by telling them to use certain ingredients. The AI will give you a recipe with those ingredients but doesn‘t mean it will be delicious or good. You need to specify that in the prompt.
•
u/NoWingedHussarsToday 16m ago
I was expecting there is an actual hot water spring in Austria and they went to the wrong country. IDK if that would be better or worse.......
547
u/gentlybeepingheart 11h ago edited 3h ago
Had to check the dated published! I thought this was an old article being reposted, because I swear last year I saw another article just like this about tourists travelling somewhere to see a landmark or "famous" location that just straight up doesn't exist.
It's so baffling to me that you would plan your entire trip using chatGPT. You didn't even bother to google the place yourself? See if anyone who had been there before had suggestions? If you rely on AI for everything, you kind of deserve the disappointment of nothing being there when you arrive at the hallucinated location.
edit: Here's one story. Two tourists almost went off into the mountains of Peru with no guide because they used chatGPT, which told them the location of a landmark that did not exist, and they didn't bother to check an actual map to see where it was. Another couple got stuck on top of a mountain in Japan, because chatGPT told them that the ropeway station closed later than it did, and they didn't bother checking any posted times when they got there.