As you may have seen, or think you may have seen, the age of AI is upon us. There is much deception and misinformation out there. A crude but apt term bandied about is “AI slop”.
In the short story, “The System of Dr Tarr and Prof Fether”, Edgar Allan Poe once penned the proverb, “…don’t believe anything you hear and only one half that you see”. Interestingly, in the story, the patients of an insane asylum take it over locking the staff in the cells. Anarchy ensues. Have you read the comments in Facebook posts lately? Ol Edgar was a poet and a prophet!
Along with sending out these newsletter emails, I also admin and moderate the SFBA and CORSA instagram accounts. They’re a lot of fun. Members and owners will private message the accounts with all kinds of great Corvair photos and videos.
Lately, however, more and more content being sent to share has been AI generated. While well intended, I cannot, in good conscience, share those photos and videos. I will also not do that here.
Many of the various Facebook “groups” have also been bombarded with a large amount of decent to downright bad AI generated Corvair content. The photo at the top of this article was a screen capture from a “retromod” AI generated Corvair. Many comments under the video praising the craftsmanship of the car and asking for advice on how to replicate.
Here’s where it becomes problematic and is driving the Facebook group moderators crazy.
If someone is new to Corvairs, they are not yet trained to discern real from fake. If an AI bot spews some nonsense or replies to a cry for help in a Facebook group, how will the new person know if the information is correct or not?
Naturally, the easy answer is to cancel your Facebook account and buy up every Corvair related book you can find so you have the info at your fingertips. I have a shelf in the garage and a shelf (or two) in the house dedicated to this endeavor. But many won’t do this and want the answer quickly. Now!
Creating or re-activating your Corvair Center Forum account is a good idea. This is where AI LLM’s scraped most of their information from anyway.
SFBA’s mission has always been to advocate for and preserve the rich history of the Corvair. While this current group is running the show, I can promise that we will do everything we can to filter out the slop. Authenticity and accuracy are paramount!
Further, all of the technical information on our website has been pulled from books and resources that have been vetted for accuracy.
There is already quite a bit of helpful information on this website since its inception a year ago. We want to thank everyone who has contributed. There’s more coming!
“Well… how do I find what I’m looking for?” Glad you asked!
At the top left of sfbacorsa.com is a little magnifying glass. Click on that.
It will open a search bar that you can type a keyword into.
When you enter the keyword, every article mentioning that keyword will be generated. Easy!
It may take a little more work than a cry for help in a Facebook group, but the information will be correct. As an added bonus, you won’t be mislead by a bot or yelled at by a real person who didn’t like your question.
If you are reading this and just starting your Corvair journey, welcome! Along with joining SFBA or your local Corvair club, please join CORSA. CORSA has an extensive online library and new members who join up on a 2 year print membership get a copy of Corvair Basics for free.
If you see something missing or want to contribute to the newsletter or website, please contact us! We are always looking for content to share. Just be warned, AI slop will be relegated to the dustbin.
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