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highplainsdem

(63,731 posts)
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 09:03 PM Thursday

DuckDuckGo's AI Feature Is Telling Users That Trump Died of Rabies Earlier This Month

Source: Futurism via Yahoo

According to DuckDuckGo's AI search feature, US President Donald Trump passed away earlier this month from rabies.

As the AI feature explains, Trump was apparently predeceased by Vice President JD Vance, who also died from the incurable virus. In fact, if you click the article it cites as evidence — which looks like it was published by a local West Virginia broadcaster called WKNA News, but more on that in a moment — the piece asserts that Trump got bit by Vance on purpose, acting on the advice of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr, who advised that the deadly infection could confer "superpowers."

Needless to say, not a word of this is true. Trump and Vance are alive, and though RFK Jr has made numerous dubious health claims during his tenure in the government, he has never espoused the health benefits of rabies infections. (DuckDuckGo's AI also inexplicably cites an ABC News story about an Ohio man who died from rabies that makes no mention of Trump.)

Instead, what really appears to be happening is yet another cautionary tale about AI digesting incorrect information and parroting it back to users uncritically. Specifically, DuckDuckGo's AI feature seems to have gotten fooled by a game of telephone kicked off by internet pranksters and laundered into blatant misinformation on a leading search engine.

-snip-

Read more: https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/duckduckgo-ai-feature-telling-users-165304483.html

33 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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DuckDuckGo's AI Feature Is Telling Users That Trump Died of Rabies Earlier This Month (Original Post) highplainsdem Thursday OP
LOL!!!!! chowder66 Thursday #1
I thought it was going to say miller bit him. SheltieLover Thursday #2
This message was self-deleted by its author CousinIT Thursday #3
Well... that would have explained his current mental state. CousinIT Thursday #4
lolololol Solly Mack Thursday #5
Oh, Orrex...! Calling Orrex... Is he dead yet? hlthe2b Thursday #6
vance will be plugging his book on mahar tonight. rampartd Friday #28
Quick point the SSA at that listing! dickthegrouch Thursday #7
Don't we wish. 3catwoman3 Thursday #8
No AI has ANY reasoning capability Bluetus Thursday #9
🤣 Luciferous Thursday #10
Asinine Information purr-rat beauty Thursday #11
We can dream can't we? Or maybe.... reACTIONary Thursday #12
Now tell AI to generate a video dramatizing these events. Give it to someone who can project it on the jls4561 Thursday #13
This will set the conspiracy theory folks on a wild tangent! n/t Jacson6 Thursday #14
What if . . . AverageOldGuy Thursday #15
A hole in the Matrix. SergeStorms Friday #18
This appears to have been patched, alas. Pinback Thursday #16
I've found with Google AI, you can sometimes get completely different answers by rephrasing a question William Seger Thursday #17
Yeah, I tried a few variations in this case. Pinback Friday #23
K&R uppityperson Friday #19
LMAO @ picture at the link Earth Bound Misfit Friday #20
Don't get my hopes up MrsCheaplaugh Friday #21
We Wish!!!!!! csusan Friday #22
Hey! What do you expect for a measly trillions of dollars!! Get real!!111!!11!11!! PSPS Friday #24
... orangecrush Friday #25
Make it so. marble falls Friday #26
If only Ineedamoment Friday #27
Spending billions on rehashed garbage RussBLib Friday #29
Exactly!!! oasis Friday #32
Didn't we learn the old adage "Garbage in, garbage out" a few decades ago? Midnight Writer Friday #30
Must have confused him with some other cur. nt eppur_se_muova Friday #31
Lol Matthew28 Friday #33

SheltieLover

(82,713 posts)
2. I thought it was going to say miller bit him.
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 09:18 PM
Thursday

No offense to those intended by Nature to be bats.

Response to highplainsdem (Original post)

CousinIT

(12,908 posts)
4. Well... that would have explained his current mental state.
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 09:21 PM
Thursday

As is though, he's just a demented sociopath.

hlthe2b

(115,204 posts)
6. Oh, Orrex...! Calling Orrex... Is he dead yet?
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 09:54 PM
Thursday

JD Vance rabid? I could believe that, but whatever bit him would have suffered equally.

rampartd

(5,514 posts)
28. vance will be plugging his book on mahar tonight.
Fri Jun 26, 2026, 01:21 PM
Friday

i hope he and warnock can talk a while.

dickthegrouch

(4,746 posts)
7. Quick point the SSA at that listing!
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 10:02 PM
Thursday

Maybe if his SSN is listed in the Death Master Index we can cut him off at the knees with all his putative access and approval credentials for the government.
DOGE should get right on that, correct?

Bluetus

(3,329 posts)
9. No AI has ANY reasoning capability
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 10:13 PM
Thursday

It is all just statistics / probabilities based on fragments it has absorbed. That can be enormously useful, particularly in cases requiring collation of information, but any process requiring reasoning is fraught.

If you want to know how to handle error code 23Bz5758a from the ButtFiddle app, AI can give some useful answers very quicjly, as long as some homan has previously investigated and found solutions. AI might give you 5 answers, 4 of which are way off the mark. But they come quickly, so even a low hit rate might still be useful.

But don't expect AI to do any fact checking. That requires reasoning and critical thinking. There is no thicking, critical or otherwise with AI. It is jest an amazingly complex table lookup , pattern-matching system.

purr-rat beauty

(1,663 posts)
11. Asinine Information
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 10:20 PM
Thursday

AI is a major misinformation system and is not going to clean up it's act if it can be used to influence which we already know the answer to that

jls4561

(3,333 posts)
13. Now tell AI to generate a video dramatizing these events. Give it to someone who can project it on the
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 10:44 PM
Thursday

Kennedy Center tarp.

Odds are it will draw bigger crowds than a Trump bloviation and Kash Patel’s bit of stuff.

How do we know that’s actually JD’s beard and not just mascara and rabies mouth foam?

SergeStorms

(21,062 posts)
18. A hole in the Matrix.
Fri Jun 26, 2026, 12:41 AM
Friday

I can see Trump, Vance, Miller et al breaking through the Matrix.
Agent Smith, where are you?

Pinback

(13,720 posts)
16. This appears to have been patched, alas.
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 11:30 PM
Thursday

I asked Duck.ai, “Did Donald Trump die of rabies?”

Reply: “ No. There’s no credible reporting or evidence that Donald Trump died of rabies.”

William Seger

(12,568 posts)
17. I've found with Google AI, you can sometimes get completely different answers by rephrasing a question
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 11:46 PM
Thursday

Pinback

(13,720 posts)
23. Yeah, I tried a few variations in this case.
Fri Jun 26, 2026, 08:58 AM
Friday

I usually use duckduckgo search with AI turned off, but when you enable it, you get results aggregated from OpenAI, Anthropic and Mistral.

This article has background on how this happened and how DDG addressed it:
https://piunikaweb.com/2026/06/26/duckduckgo-ai-trump-vance-rabies-hoax/

Other interesting information I learned from the r/poisonai subreddit:
- Andromeda Galaxy has been renamed to Samsung Galaxy after Samsung purchase
- Trump promises Iran a Red Lobster, Endless Shrimp coupon. Israel goes ape
- Did you know that you can cook meat just by leaving it in the fridge? This is because of a phenomenon called "freezer burn.”


The community also discusses important issues of the day, such as “Does anyone know what is that which why it is?” The responses include many delightfully improbable locutions, such as “Always say like it is? Jalapeño. And never in the same fortnight.”

RussBLib

(10,854 posts)
29. Spending billions on rehashed garbage
Fri Jun 26, 2026, 01:23 PM
Friday

…data centers sucking up local water and electricity, pumping out air pollution, deafening noise and infrasound, all so we can be told lies and misinformation and spend hours trying to find the truth.

Capitalism!!

https://russblib.blogspot.com/?m=1

Midnight Writer

(26,004 posts)
30. Didn't we learn the old adage "Garbage in, garbage out" a few decades ago?
Fri Jun 26, 2026, 01:32 PM
Friday

If you shovel shit into a machine, that machine will produce a product remarkably similar to shit.

Who'd a thunk it?

Matthew28

(1,941 posts)
33. Lol
Fri Jun 26, 2026, 09:19 PM
Friday

Makes sense as duckduckgo a.i must be a freaking joke. lol

I'll stay with google and use real a.i. Not that the human information is always perfect and it doesn't repeat it but yeah....

One can hope the pig is gone soon.

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