mysteriously months before vaporized into thin airElon Musk’s so-called Government Efficiency Department Destroyed the National Weather ServiceDue to which there was a serious shortage of staff.
While the Trump administration Promised to rehire most of the approximately 550 lost jobs in the agency last summer, effectively admitting that DOGE had gone too far, with the agency having offices across the country Still struggling with many roles that remain incomplete,
And given the latest mistake, those that remain are struggling to keep up, relying on flawed AI technology to come up with broken visuals for social media feeds.
In form of Washington Post reportsThe National Weather Service was caught posting an AI-generated weather map that contained misleading information about the names of cities in Idaho.
One graphic predicts “strong southerly winds tonight” and shows a map that names non-existent towns like “Orangetoild” and “Wha Bod” – an unintentionally hilarious hallucination that sounds more like an old-timey dirty joke than an actual place where people live.
The offending artwork was removed the same day on Monday WaPo Informed the agency.
Experts say a painful mistake could undermine trust in the agency and create confusion.
It also fully exposes the glaring shortcomings of AI technology that lead to similar embarrassing incidents as the Trump administration is pushing hard for the technology’s adoption by government agencies. For example, last month this 1,000 experts appointed for “Tech Force” To create AI.
But despite plenty of enthusiasm and resources being allocated to advancing the technology, shocking and easily avoidable mistakes are falling short, as the latest incident shows.
This also isn’t the first time an NWS office has been caught posting lazy AI crap on social media. In November, service in Rapid City, South Dakota, posted a map which included obscure place names, which led to widespread ridicule,
NWS reported WaPo A statement said using AI for public-facing content is unusual, but not technically prohibited.
“Recently, a local office used AI to create a base map to display forecast information, however the map inadvertently displayed ambiguous city names,” NWS spokeswoman Erica Gro ce told the newspaper. “The map was immediately corrected and updated social media posts were distributed.”
CEE said that “NWS will continue to carefully evaluate outcomes in cases where AI is applied to ensure accuracy and efficiency, and will discontinue use in scenarios where AI is not effective.”
But the damage has already been done. As flawed generative AI tools are being used carelessly, without the necessary follow-up work of investigating hallucinations, experts have warned that agencies like the NWS could suffer serious damage to their reputation and authority.
“I’m not the one making the decision if there’s a way to use AI to fill that gap,” said Chris Gloninger, a weather and climate communications expert. WaPo“But I’m afraid that creating cities that don’t exist will cause the kind of damage or harm to the public trust that we need to maintain,”
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