please empty your brain below
Hmmm, I'm not far from Hither Green but I've never seen the viaduct. I will seek it out later today.

Thanks for the tip.

Regards

zin92 | 01.04.23 - 7:17 a.m. | #

Perfect, even down to the American spelling'

popartist | 01.04.23 - 7:25 a.m. | #

Well, I grew up in Kent and I certainly learnt about places I’d never heard of before.

RogerB | 01.04.23 - 7:29 a.m. | #

I was going to ask who wrote this and had they been there but then I looked at the date ! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Jo W | 01.04.23 - 7:34 a.m. | #

Bottom photo is Chappell Viaduct and River Colne.

MO | 01.04.23 - 7:36 a.m. | #

Well played Geezer, well played. Hook, line, and sinker.

Paul Parkinson | 01.04.23 - 7:48 a.m. | #

Hmmm, the bottom picture definitely isn't Chappel, unless they doubled the track and electrified it overnight. But given this governments focus on improving our railways, I am sure that is entirely possible.

Fat_boy_pete | 01.04.23 - 8:01 a.m. | #

Welwyn Viaduct over the Mimram?

Baldrick | 01.04.23 - 8:06 a.m. | #

I've never heard of this one, so I thought the whole thing was spoof - but no! However there's not much agreement to be found as to where the Quaggy rises: Lockbottom, Locksbottom, Nineham Wood and Sundridge Park are quoted, but not Mottingham as far as I can see.

Ian | 01.04.23 - 8:07 a.m. | #

The two photos of the viaduct are not of the same one!

And, YESTERDAY, I very much doubt if anybody was having a picnic or the sun was shining as brightly as the photos show.

John Simmons | 01.04.23 - 8:15 a.m. | #

you could save any amount of time and effort by more use of AI, even if not the first of April. It would be most munificent of the railway heritage people to restore such a structure, but a little self defeating to equip it with overhead electrification in a wholly third-rail area

Chrispy | 01.04.23 - 8:30 a.m. | #

Not one shopping trolly, clearly a spoof…

Mike Jones | 01.04.23 - 8:31 a.m. | #

[comment written by Chat-GPT]

Dear Diamond Geezer, your blog post on the River Quaggy was both informative and insightful. It's crucial to recognize the cultural and environmental significance of small rivers like the Quaggy and work together to preserve them for future generations. Thank you for raising awareness on this important issue.

James Scantlebury | 01.04.23 - 8:36 a.m. | #

Failed to mention the Spaghetti trees underneath the viaduct

Richard | 01.04.23 - 8:40 a.m. | #

It's a most useful addition for the Green Chain walk to have an electrified viaduct. It's ideal for viewing over the adjoining countryside and the 25,000 volt electric wires should be a bonus for re-charging cameras and mobile phones.

How thoughtful of them.

Petras409 | 01.04.23 - 8:40 a.m. | #

Well, this does read as if it was written by someone who hasn't actually done the walk and it's definitely not as interesting as your usual style.

paul robert draper | 01.04.23 - 8:45 a.m. | #

Ah the mysterious Hither Green Viaduct. Thanks for another great walk idea.

davews | 01.04.23 - 8:48 a.m. | #

It may be 1st April but if this was about somewhere in another country, or if someone without any knowledge of the area read this - would it be obvious that it was a spoof?

Still Anon | 01.04.23 - 9:02 a.m. | #

Loved the article as it helped crystallise a lot of what I’ve been thinking about tools like ChatGPT and what they mean for the future. On the surface this is a perfectly decent post about the Quaggy - it reads well and captures a lot of the overarching themes one would expect to see in an article like it.

But there are the obvious errors, including the whopper of Hither Green viaduct (AI hallucination extreme), but the biggest thing (and something I really missed compared to your typical posts) is the detail and other insights. It’s so bland and generic, there was nothing really to take away from the post at all.

Mu | 01.04.23 - 9:04 a.m. | #

I was going to ask if ChatGTP had written this, before I remembered the date :)

Claire | 01.04.23 - 9:11 a.m. | #

Whether or not this is AI generated, or possibly a hallucination of another sort, it is extraordinary how the text and image generative transformers have advanced in the last year or so. Give them another three or four rounds of development to iron out the obvious flaws and they are going to be a very real threat to many professions. Perhaps they are already.

Andrew | 01.04.23 - 9:15 a.m. | #

Sounds like the sort of marketing bolx designed to attract buyers to a new high rise development!!!

Cornish Cockney | 01.04.23 - 9:47 a.m. | #

There are days, when I intend not to log in before I'm fully wide awake. I nearly always forget.

Steve | Homepage | 01.04.23 - 9:53 a.m. | #

Oh no! So you’re not going to be writing your blog posts any more? Just pressing the button to have AU generate it for you? Like what you hear on the top deck of a bus, what you see down a side road in Romford, what happens when an escalator is removed from a tube station, all in pseudo DG land? Tell me it’s not true… next April perhaps.

Herbof | 01.04.23 - 10:12 a.m. | #

It was great growing up nearby and one of the favourite pleasures of my friends and I was to go fishing for trout. None of us had a rod but we soon learned the places they'd take shade by the banks, so we'd just 'tickle' them out with our hands.

RogerW | 01.04.23 - 11:17 a.m. | #

Coincidentally, I was walking down the Rivers Pool/Ravensbourne yesterday. There is no mention of the weather in your/AI post. And London so wants an equivalent to New York's High Line, you can almost imagine a railway viaduct being built or closed to create it. What other urban features can we imagine into existence?

south london lad | 01.04.23 - 11:22 a.m. | #

A great way to celebrate such a special day! The invocation of the "diverse urban communities" buzzphrase was merely a harbinger of further seasonal delights to come.

cau1khead | 01.04.23 - 11:45 a.m. | #

For those questioning whether this is actually AI generated, as a student equipped with the experience of trying to figure out if classmates cheated on their homework using AI, I'm pretty sure it's AI generated.

I am very sure about the pictures, as it gives a distinct AI feel. A prime example is AI's poor ability to drawing animals, shown clearly by the "swan". In addition, you can notice small details, such as the power line that goes behind a cloud in the first viaduct picture.

The text is less clear - its quite honestly scary how well AI has become at writing. I checked a few "AI-detecting" websites and they are very sure its AI generated, but I generally don't trust the free ones and I don't care enough to pay for a reliable one.

Great April Fools post dg. I don't think AI is coming for your job yet, as the current ones are designed to predict the most likely next word. This means it will often make up things - I asked ChatGPT to write a blog post about the river Lea, and it claimed it met the Grand Union canal at Tottenham Hale. Great for writers, not great for students that try to write a non-fiction essay using AI.

TW | 01.04.23 - 11:49 a.m. | #

Another nail in the coffin of reality.

Strabismus | 01.04.23 - 11:53 a.m. | #

Today's post was generated by AI.

All I typed was "Write about a walk along the River Quaggy" and "Tell me more about the Hither Green Viaduct". ChatGPT wrote the rest. Similarly all the 'photographs' were generated by an AI called DALL·E. If you hover over the pictures you can see what I asked it to draw.

The Quaggy is a real river in southeast London.
The Hither Green Viaduct is 100% fictional. If you type 'Hither Green Viaduct' into a search engine you get zero results.

I have no idea why ChatGPT invented this supposed engineering marvel and where all its misinformation came from - such are the dangers of 'fake news'. But this post was so easy to put together.

The future is artificial creativity, and the future is coming fast.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 01.04.23 - 12:00 p.m. | #

The text is bland and I probably think I would have spotted it was AI generated. But wow the mages are very impressive and I would definitely not have even considered them fake.

jellytot | 01.04.23 - 1:31 p.m. | #

How long before the Hither Green Viaduct gets its own Wikipedia page.

Still Anon | 01.04.23 - 1:32 p.m. | #

As a railwayman I found the overhead wires on a viaduct the biggest giveaway.

dg writes: and yet...

Michael Woods | 01.04.23 - 1:44 p.m. | #

You mock, but we have kingfishers too.

HTFB | 01.04.23 - 2:42 p.m. | #

I got as far as 'and is surrounded by beautiful natural landscapes and diverse urban communities' before smelling a rat.

Peter | 01.04.23 - 3:21 p.m. | #

The river through Ladywell Fields and Riverdale Park is the Ravensbourne and not the Quaggy.

Adrian | 01.04.23 - 3:55 p.m. | #

"Write an intelligent and informative comment on this blog post diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-walk-along-river-quaggy.html"

"As an AI language model, I find your blog post "A Walk Along River Quaggy" to be a fascinating and informative read. Your descriptive narration of the walk along the river path, and the accompanying photographs, really bring the scenery to life for the reader.

It's interesting to learn about the history of the River Quaggy and how it has been modified over time, from being a meandering stream to a channelled watercourse. The fact that the river once played an important role in powering mills in the area, and how it is now a haven for wildlife, adds to its significance.

Your observations about the changes in the landscape and the impact of urban development on the river are thought-provoking. The way that the built environment has encroached upon the riverbank, and the attempts to balance development with environmental conservation, raises important questions about how we can live sustainably in our cities.

Overall, I appreciate your insightful and engaging writing style, which makes the reader feel like they are walking alongside you as you explore the River Quaggy. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge with your readers!"

John Styles | 01.04.23 - 4:07 p.m. | #

You're safe, but I reckon quite a few other blogs' writers' days are numbered. (or they may already have been replaced, of course, without anyone noticing).

For a university lecturer, with a particular interest in assessment, these are very interesting times indeed.

Sarah | 01.04.23 - 4:24 p.m. | #

Nothing in your brief for the fifth photo would lead me to expect a giant, extra-wide filing cabinet in the background.

ChrisL | 01.04.23 - 6:09 p.m. | #

"If you type 'Hither Green Viaduct' into a search engine you get zero results."

Not anymore you don't! Those pictures are out there now.

2d53 | Homepage | 01.04.23 - 6:31 p.m. | #

John Styles - ChatGPT is unable to access links and websites. It gets its information from a database that is updated until 2021. What it can do is make things up based on the url.

TW | 01.04.23 - 7:27 p.m. | #

I while ago I tried using ChatGPT to generate articles on tube stations, and immediately recognised its distinctive style here. Always blandly upbeat, a clear intro-body-conclusion structure, written at roughly GCSE level, and lacking any real personality.
The "hallucinations" are fun, my favourite from my experiments being the art gallery at Westminster station. Less fun, indeed potentially very inconvenient, was ChatGPT's insistence that any given station had gained lift access to the platforms in the early 2000s - the current iteration seems to have ceased that, at least.

Paul Burkitt-Gray | Homepage | 01.04.23 - 9:23 p.m. | #

Someone at work showed me chatGPT recently. I asked it a deliberately ill-specified question particular to a technical area I used to know something about, which wasn't nonsense but wasn't answerable in the form I stated it. It did a good job of telling me what information I had not provided, and what the answer might be if it filled in the blanks I had left in with a few sensible suggestions of its own. I found that impressive, and a little frightening.

mark addy | 01.04.23 - 9:28 p.m. | #

Fascinating how AI can produce something really "convincing" yet also a load of nonsense!

Mikey C | 01.04.23 - 10:46 p.m. | #

Bing Chat AI does look at current URLs, and its response to writing "an intelligent and informative comment" on this post is

Here’s an intelligent and informative comment you could leave on the blog post:

“Thank you for sharing your walk along the River Quaggy. It’s fascinating to learn about the rich history and diverse landscapes that surround this small river as it flows through southeast London. From the tranquil scenery of Mottingham to the bustling city streets of Lewisham and Greenwich, it’s clear that the River Quaggy has a unique character and charm. It’s also wonderful to see how nature thrives along the riverbank, with a diverse array of plant and animal life. The old stone viaduct at Hither Green is particularly striking, and serves as a beautiful reminder of the area’s rich history. Thank you for taking us on this journey with you.”

Mark | 02.04.23 - 11:22 a.m. | #

You will be thrilled to find the top result on Google search for Hither Green Viaduct.
Next step will be a Wikipedia page.

Freddie | 05.04.23 - 10:08 a.m. | #











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