Your Drunken Buddy, AI

So...I'm not proud of this, but I was by myself playing an online trivia game about baseball and I had to resort to cheating. I opened a second browser and entered some of the clues. It took a while, but I finally got to the answer, which I correctly entered back at the trivia game to keep my streak alive. (Also, this will turn into a word of caution for anyone who still may trust their drunken cousin/buddy/neighbor AI.)

But these clues were hard! This game gives you 5 clues, one at a time so you can guess after each clue, and you get better bragging rights for getting it earlier. Each clue is more and more focused, so that helps.

One time I played the first clue was: "First Baseman." Being the Yankee nut I am, I typed in Don Mattingly. It was wrong, so the next clue was: "Two-time All-Star." I wasn't remotely sure, so I went with another of my Yanks and typed in Tino Martinez. Correct! Whoa! Only two guesses. Yay me!

So, the round where I cheated went like this:

• Outfielder (my guess was wrong)
• Played ONE year with the Mariners (WRONG)
• Won an MVP award (WRONG)
• Won a World Series with the Mets

By now...right? Any baseball fans in the house? Who TF could this be? Maybe you know, but I was perplexed. How many MVPs won a World Series with the Mets and then played just a single year with Seattle? This is when I went to a new tab and tried to cheat. I tried, but wasn't successful, because of shit like this:

Okay...okay...(heavy sigh) There's a lot to unpack here. I'm generally wary of the AI Overview about anything and ignore them on principal. I've read enough about artificial intelligence to know that AI for 1) doesn't always/really understand that lying is considered bad; and 2) isn't as concerned with getting things factually correct in general as we'd probably like; and 3) has about the performance record of a C, maybe C-, student. If I'm curious about gluons and other massless vector bosons, I may Google the topic, but then skip the AI Overview and move right to the white papers.

BUT, baseball is something I know WAY more about than quantum mechanics, and that image up there, that Overview trying to answer my question, just shook me. The only literally correct thing in that box is that Mike Piazza played for the Mets. He NEVER played with Seattle (the randos are San Diego, Florida, and Oakland); he NEVER won an MVP award, although he was close in 1996, but he was still playing for the Dodgers; and in 1992 he got his 'cup of coffee' in LA before his Rookie of the Year season in '93. And the METS winning the World Series in 1992?  Puh-leeeze. The Blue Jays won in '92 (beating the Braves), as the start of their back-to-back victories before the STRIKE wiped out the '94 post season.

With none of the non-AI answers helping either, I guessed incorrectly again and was given, for my last clue, a list of players Seattle traded for this player, this former MVP, former champion-Met. That was the clue that sprung the answer. And I did cheat to find it. I mean, I wasn't paying that kind of attention back in the '90s. 

It was Kevin Mitchell. MVP was with the Giants (I remember him being good for them), and he was rookie who played part-time in '86 with the Mets. The Mariners tried to bring him in but it didn't work out, and they traded him after that one year.

If you know baseball pretty well, you'll look at that AI Overview and temper your trust of the robots. Temper it hard.

Here's a link to the trivia game (it kicks ass!). There's a new game each day, and you can go back and play the past day's game as far back as...well, as far back as they'll let you.