Beware of authoritative-sounding infants.

It started innocently enough: I was researching the release year of a favorite film, “The Harder They Fall” starring Humphrey Bogart. When I put the title into ChatGPT, it returned this:

"The Harder They Fall" is a phrase that originated from the lyrics of a song written by Jimmy Cliff in 1972...

Hmmm…yes, that’s a real song, but no one thinks that song was the origin of the phrase. When I asked again, ChatGPT gave me this:

"The Harder They Fall" is a phrase that originates from the title of a 1972 Western film directed by Martin Ritt, starring James Coburn.

Common sense tells us that no, that film’s title wasn’t the origin of the phrase either. And a Google search revealed that there is no such film!

Since I know that the title is part of a longer saying – “The bigger they are, the harder they fall” – I ChatGPT-ed the entire phrase. Depending on how I posed the question, ChatGPT cited a 19th century American humorist, an early-20th century boxer, and Aesop’s Fables as the phrase’s source.

For me, this was a great reminder that generative AI is still in its infancy. While it answers questions with an authoritative tone, it’s frequently wrong. So beware!

(Btw, “The Harder They Fall” was released in 1956. Thank you, Google!)