Ever heard of “vegetative electron microscopy”? It is a term that has been popping up in AI responses throughout the earlier part of the year—one that is completely nonsensical, originating from a translation error dating back to the 1950s. Alas, AI doesn’t know anything—it's all tokens to AI, and thus we now see the term appearing in AIs—something called “digital fossils.”
Like biological fossils trapped in rock, these digital artefacts may become permanent fixtures in our information ecosystem. […] Digital fossils reveal not just the technical challenge of monitoring massive datasets, but the fundamental challenge of maintaining reliable knowledge in systems where errors can become self-perpetuating.
