Day 25, or The Day AI Took Over

What was it that I said a mere 2 days ago about acting on stuff you read on the internet? Here is a "new" article on the dangers of eggs appearing on the UK's Express news website. As far as I can tell, it is citing research published in 2017! I am not questioning the research, mind you. There very well might be a link between choline and clotting. If you didn't read the link, the short version is that choline is converted by gut bacteria into TMAO, a chemical that makes plateles more sticky and may make clots form more readily and in places they aren't supposed to.

But choline is an essential nutrient, so now what are we supposed to do? Fortunately, there is probably a middle ground, just like always. Too little is gonna give you trouble, and too much is gonna give you other trouble. I also would wager that it is much better to get your choline from actual dietary sources such as eggs, beef and fish than from a pill of concentrated choline. Perhaps a bolus of choline in isolation might result in excess TMAO production. Or consumption of other nutrients in combination reduce the TMAO. Nothing in our bodies works in isolation. Everything is connected.

So back to this Express article and what it means for those of us trying to sort through the noise. For starters, click bait headlines like this are dangerous and irresponsible. The first thing the researchers from 2017 would tell us is that more research must be done, and they would not immediately implicate eggs in the title of their paper. The result of the study is intriguing, but now there are new questions to explore. Second, always check the references, for which this article has none, other than mentioning the Cleveland Clinic. Hence why I had to guess at the research it was referencing. I am resisting joining Instagram, but Mrs Dr. Sunrise showed me Joe Rogan's response to this article, something along the lines of this being black belt level trolling or AI taking over, and I think he is on to something. There has been a lot of talk in medical circles surrounding Chat GPT's potential for creating written content, often convincing but false. What if some of the millions of articles available online are written with the use of AI to pull data from various sources to be polished and edited (hopefully) by a human. There is some great potential there in terms of searching mountains of data and resources, but there are at least 2 limitations of AI that I can think of right off the bat. One, AI is only as good as the information it has access to. If the supplied info is restricted or biased in any way, the output will be affected. Two, AI will tend to find the answer you are looking for. If you don't ask the right questions, you may get a misleading result. If I ask Chat GPT to write a report outlining how candy corn is an important part of a heart healthy diet, it will probably come up with something for me. If I can ever get in to try it out, I will go through that process and report back. Then let's have AI start writing articles based on information generated by AI! Hoo-boy howdy, what a mess that would be!

The moral of the story is to always remember Edgar Allan Poe's thoughts on AI, "Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that which you see." Lest somebody accuse me of spreading disinformation, Poe was not referring to AI. However that quote is as valid today as it was in 1845. It is important to always maintain at least a little skepticism, always ask questions, and pay attention to motivation. Who knows, might I be an AI? Freaky!

In the meantime, I will continue enjoying my almost daily serving of eggs. You, however, should talk to your doctor before eating eggs, because I am only here for entertainment purposes and I am not providing medical advice. Besides, have you seen the price of eggs lately? Hopefully this news kills some of the demand and brings the price back down a little.

The Light Side was fighting to get through this morning, but not nearly enough to call it for Sun.

Chunk is not a robot.