kevinkk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 4:09 pm
What I typically do from time to time, is rearrange things, and put them in "better" places.

I broke down and spent a weekend doing that last year. What a nightmare. I'd been sticking specimens wherever they fit physically, and I had taxa spread all over in the wrong places. If you want to talk about "can't find" god I had it. But I have the same problems w/ institutional collections- a taxa spread between the primary collection, a donated personally collection, pro tem, and "wherever" so it's not just me.

I'm glad you sorted it out Chuck.
What I typically do from time to time, is rearrange things, and put them in "better" places. That's when they go missing.

Thanks guys for your compassion.

This all started actually a couple days ago when I couldn't find them.

Yesterday I made a concerted effort to find them. I went through all my NA Papilio drawers (minus the machaon-types) looking. Four times. Studied each drawer. Nothing.

As you probably observed, I was frustrated.

I've learned when something doesn't make sense, and you can't make sense of it, walk away and give it time. Last year I was re-mating two mechanical assemblies and suddenly they wouldn't go together. I pushed, I tried again, I tried and tried. I used a rubber mallet- no go. I pulled out the steel hammer and thought- wait, I'd better put this down. The next day they inexplicably slid together.

And so today. I pulled out suspect drawer #1 and looked again. No go based on chronological date. I was was looking at unique morphological characteristics when I noticed one specimen had an extra pink label. Ah hah. There must be another one- and sure there was. As it turns out, in writing the description paper I had recorded the wrong day one one specimen, and was exactly one year off on the other! There was no error in my collating- it was the human error in transcribing label to keyboard.

So I'm good. Now just have to take new photos (after all that.)

Check the drawer dates. Maybe you mixed up the chronological order.

I hope your specimens turn up, and are simply misplaced somewhere in the house; it must be an extremely frustrating situation.

Presumably you put the drawer somewhere easy to access, and have just forgotten where you put it.

Hopefully you will find it soon.

Adam.

!!!!!! Dude. I hope you locate them. If not, you can always just find another one and designate that as a holotype…as annoying as that might be. Or if you want, I can designate one from my collection.

I bought a ring light, experimented with it. Now time to re-photo the type specimens for publication.

I cannot find them.

This shouldn't be hard- all specimens, drawer after drawer after drawer, are collated chronologically.

And the last drawer ends just before the capture dates of the type pair. So I'm actually missing an entire #*^%@# drawer.

I can't imagine anyone came and stole it, and I never took it out of the house.


Arrrrgggghhhh!

kevinkk wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2024 3:47 pm I am missing the point of the original post.
..., step out of their field of expertise and rub elbows with the experienced.

The motive isn't to get an answer. There are a myriad of reasons bots and scams post inaccurate stuff:
1. to identify the gullible, and identify those to avoid. This may be at the individual level, or forum level
2. to gain posts in order to appear trustworthy when it comes time to defraud
3. to see how easy it is the register & post/ get past any gate keepers (for future use)
4. to establish sleeper accounts that will be used sometimes years later
5. to find sites/ accounts that have PM-to-email and/ or file storage to use for illicit and harder-to-track crime.

Basically for crime of some sort.

When I see a bot/ potential fraud, the first thing I do is search for some copy/paste phrase. Sometimes you'll find the same thing all over the internet (hint: that's a dead give-away). This one though was tailored for this forum; note that "clothes moths", Permathrin, "west coast", and "NYC" have all come up sometimes regularly here. Scientific names appear daily on here. Throw in some scientific names available in seconds, and it's obvious it was tailored for us.

Why were we targeted? Probably fraud. If someone had taken it seriously and posted a serious response that's a flag of gullibility. Then see how long you can go back-and-forth with the gullible to see how gullible they are. Then watch them for a year. Then six months later hit them with a PM offering something for money, or even get them to click a link that infects their computer. Bingo.

All these conclusions may be accurate. Other than childish amusement, I am missing the point of the original post.
Even without being an expert on clothes moths, I found the premise to be virtually impossible, this is what often happens when people,
or robots, step out of their field of expertise and rub elbows with the experienced.

Jshuey wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2024 12:53 pm Well, if this is all the smarter that AI is at the moment, I'm not too worried about the future of humanity.

j

There are many with that consensus, and I believe it dangerous.

Human technology went from biplanes to jets in six years. AI will mature far faster.

It's already used quite often for unethical, biased purposes. It's suggested people commit suicide, it's ridiculed (bullied) people, etc. It has suggested the elimination of the human species. It does not, unfortunately, have the "robot will not harm humans" programming. It's now being not just politically weaponized, but militarily weaponized. "The Terminator" truly is the destination, and not far off.

Aside from that dire prediction, as we see here it wastes time. It hides elements of research while promoting others. It knowingly provides incorrect information. This is not good if AI is used for research. Bots then splatter it all over forums and such. When AI can publish on its own, who knows which publications will be reliable, and which aren't.

Though throttling AI development has been discussed, it's out of the bag and control will, inevitably, be minimal. Just like Skype killed the long distance phone company, and online publishing killed the newspaper.

I suppose if it wouldn’t be AI there be already response to all the comments have been posted if a person is expecting some answers.

Well, if this is all the smarter that AI is at the moment, I'm not too worried about the future of humanity.

j

adamcotton wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2024 9:34 pm I found this post strange, but I'm not sure it's AI ... wouldn't AI know that species names are spelt with a first small letter, and only genus names with a capital?

Adam.

AI is available in various packages (programs) and each have owner-adjustable settings for correctness, tone, writing level, and humor. In general though, all of the commercially available (eg ChatGPT) mine the internet for info, but don't go deeper into publications, etc. So if the answer/ info isn't commonly available (e.g. on Wikipedia) or "conventional wisdom" the answer will be wrong.

Further, there's adjustable settings for things like "make stuff up"; a NASA AI engineer told me that's intentional because the AI chat is trying to get human users to correct it, and then it stores that information.

What AI is fascinatingly adept at is generating well written content that emulates English; at the asking this can be adjusted for competence (e.g., school grade level, and US vs UK vocabulary usage.)

Typically, the give-away on AI-generated content is a mix of in-depth knowledge with perplexing stupidity. That's what we have here- names of species, chemicals, etc. but a total lack of common sense. AI itself, asked to write a simple story, won't come up with this content- somebody asked it to write an absolutely outrageous story, which is what was posted. Problem is, AI doesn't know enough to not employ species names and chemical details. So the hand is tipped.

There are other give-aways: west coast and NYC, which are well known and the home of most AI programmers/ owners. If it had picked, for example, the source location to be Coeur D'Alene Idaho the story would fall apart because virtually everyone from that area (1) has the common sense to know this is impossible, and (2) doesn't have the money to throw clothing away every three days. Though the fact that it did not pick Coeur D'Alene isn't to make the story more believable; again, it picked or was told "west coast."

The spelling, grammar, and punctuation I've not experimented with. Usually, AI will generate these to perfection, so I'm unsure if a user can tell Chat to intentionally screw up, or if these were later hand-edited. "0.5% Permethrin" and later "permathrins" is not, AFAIK, AI (yet.) This then indicates to me that the content was generated (by AI upon request) not by a bot to mine data, but by a human with some other motive.

Another clue to AI generation is the tone. It tries to make it believable, which is actually VERY difficult. Remember the US newspapers' "Dear Abby" column, in which dingbat writers would ask for advice about challenges that pretty much everyone knew how to handle? One particular college (forgot which one) was adept at getting spoof questions published- but IIRC under 20 of these made it through in a period spanning decades. AI on the other hand is effectively a master of manipulation; in many ways it can out-think the humans appointed to screen it. This is scary, because AI is just a baby.

In some cases, and we will see here, AI will return to "defend" itself with well written excuses and more story. This though, right now, is rare. Besides which, as I said while this is AI generated, there's a human involved. This in itself is somewhat of a blessing, as is the fact that the whole thing is a spoof, because if this were truly human-generated based on a perceived series of events we have to keep in mind that this person drives and votes.

You can expect AI to be mature enough within five years that it will generate content on detailed subjects for which humans will not be able to ascertain who/ what wrote it. Like any tool, it will be used for entertainment, politics, and crime, what a shame.

Chuck wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2024 11:35 am re you from California or Oregon?

??
So, I have as plausible a cause as any. This person has corrosive sweat. Think about it.

I found this post strange, but I'm not sure it's AI ... wouldn't AI know that species names are spelt with a first small letter, and only genus names with a capital?

Adam.

Elodin wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2024 7:58 pm Hi, Im working at the lab trying to identify some insects from the fields of Extremadura, western Spain. I found this Diptera and tried to identify it, but I found it impossible. I was wondering if anyone could help me. Thank you!

It appears to be a member of the superfamily Tipuloidea -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_fly

Hi, Im working at the lab trying to identify some insects from the fields of Extremadura, western Spain. I found this Diptera and tried to identify it, but I found it impossible. I was wondering if anyone could help me. Thank you!

It's either AI, or it's Voodoo.

Try some better synthetic clothing. My first impression is that there is something other than an insect at work. Your efforts at abatement seem
quite extensive, and I am having trouble envisioning the moth conspiracy which is plaguing you.