Via @rodhilton@mastodon.social

Right now if you search for “country in Africa that starts with the letter K”:

  • DuckDuckGo will link to an alphabetical list of countries in Africa which includes Kenya.

  • Google, as the first hit, links to a ChatGPT transcript where it claims that there are none, and summarizes to say the same.

This is because ChatGPT at some point ingested this popular joke:

“There are no countries in Africa that start with K.” “What about Kenya?” “Kenya suck deez nuts?”

  • Valthorn
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    1 year ago

    I searched “Countries in africa that start with the letter K” and got:

    While there are 54 recognized countries in Africa, none of them begin with the letter “K”. The closest is Kenya, which starts with a “K” sound, but is actually spelled with a “K” sound. It’s always interesting to learn new trivia facts like this.

    But if I search for “African countries that start with the letter K”, I get:

    Kenya. Kenya is a country located in East Africa. It shares borders with Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia. The country is home to dozens of national parks and reserves and diverse wildlife such as lions, elephants, and buffalo.

    It seems to be very specific, but I think that makes it worse.

    Edit: I tried the same two, but in Swedish and both yielded a list:

    K.

    Kamerun.

    Kap Verde.

    Kenya.

    Komorerna.

    Kongo-Brazzaville (Republiken Kongo)

    Kongo-Kinshasa (Demokratiska republiken Kongo)

    Edit again: In German the search “Afrikanischen Länder die anfangen mit dem Buchstaben k” yields this very wrong list. Notably, the search “Länder in Afrika die anfangen mit dem Buchstaben k” doesn’t yield a list at all.

    K.

    Kambodscha.

    Kamerun.

    Kanada.

    Kap Verde.

    Kasachstan.

    Katar.

    Kenia.