US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/us-africa-government-map-mislabel-country-ai-6288891
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/us-africa-government-map-mislabel-country-ai-6288891
66 Comments
Naich@piefed.world · 165 pts · 4d
AI enables idiots to fuck up ten times quicker.
Jhex@lemmy.world · 38 pts · 4d
In the same way the internet gave anonymity and a megaphone for the idiots of the world to double down in their stupidity (instead of overcoming it); AI has given the chance for the lazy and stupid to showcase their mediocrity
dangling_cat@piefed.blahaj.zone · 16 pts · 4d
Only the stupid.
Lazy people will invent tools and make sure it actually works so they can keep being lazy.
Jhex@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
fair point
9point6@lemmy.world · 107 pts · 4d
Landlocked
aarch0x40@piefed.social · 19 pts · 4d
It’s a land coast!! Shut up, Commie!!
Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 4d
Rhode island is not an island! Checkmate!
SippyCup@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 3d
raises glasses UHM AKCHUALLY the state of Rhode Island gets its name from the island because it's colonial charter mentions it first in addition the mainland plantations. So you can see I am very fun at parties.
frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io · 60 pts · 4d
I feel bad for teachers who have to convince students that reliance on slop is unacceptable when the fucking government does it all day long and no one gets fired
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca · 43 pts · 4d
this is, and I cannot stress this enough, so fucking embarassing for the USA
MangoCats@feddit.it · 8 pts · 4d
They're doing it on purpose - if they were in the Navy they'd be doing it to porpoises - it's all about the eyerolls and outrage.
MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
No, they're incompetent morons. You have to be to be still be working for Trump.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 1 pts · 3d
Morons with a purpose. Are you worked up? Have you taken a side? The manipulation is working.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 3d
Who cares? We'll just drown it out with chants of "We're Number One!" while waving foam fingers.
eestileib@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 3d
Compared to multiple US Presidents going to Epstein Island, and the complicity of the entire federal government in covering it up, this is small potatoes.
Th4tGuyII@fedia.io · 40 pts · 4d
Yeah, go figure. And they should be rightfully shamed for using AI to make a diplomatic presentation.
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 4d
Clown show government
MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 3d
What's weird about this is, whether you like it or not, chatGPT can generate an image of Africa with correct geography and country labels.
Not sure how they managed to fuck this up.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 16 pts · 3d
Probably used Grok lol
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 3d
Grok's owner is from Africa. Even Grok would have gotten it right. They decided to use their own knowledge.
forkDestroyer@infosec.pub · 3 pts · 3d
Groks owner probably didn't code from. Busy ignoring his kids.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 3d
A literal fourth grader wouldn't have fucked this up, that's how STUPID MAGAs are, even at the very top.
This is what I remind people of whenever MAGA starts threatening, and tries to intimidate everybody: They are Virtuosically Incompetent, and fuck up EVERYTHING they do, even really easy stuff like this. Everything they threaten is a bluff, and they are really bad at it.
Call their bluff Everytime, they are ALWAYS lying.
They are nothing to be afraid of. They are literally dumber than a failing fourth grader.
gedaliyah@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 3d
Did not know that - it makes it so much worse. They didn't even bother writing a good prompt!
Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 3d
Now everyone is talking about this dumb "mistake" and not them cutting back funds for AIDS relief.
MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
When is this going to stop? This minor issue was not intended as a 4D chess distraction.
Stop treating these people like strategic masterminds. They're fucking stupid.
Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 3d
I suspect some low-level staffer used a joke prompt, maybe expecting it to be flagged early on, and it escalated up the presentation life cycle through multiple layers of people who didn't know or care.
metermatic26@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
Actually, they probably fumbled with the prompts for a while causing it to hallucinate.
They then didn’t notice the error because of a lack of basic understanding on the subject matter ánd didn’t think it necessary to scrutinize anything they put out in the world.
Are you starting to see the pattern?
Curious_Canid@piefed.ca · 18 pts · 4d
AI may have amplified the problem, but the underlying issue, as usual, is incompetent people. We have an executive branch made up entirely of people who are slavishly loyal to Trump. Since only spineless idiots can qualify, that's what we get across the board.
CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 3d
Yeah but AI enables incompetent people. I feel like having to work on something would make you learn enough not to fuck up too bad, generally. But with AI you don't need to learn or research, you can just ask chatGPT to do whatever and call it a day, if you're careless enough
XeroxCool@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 3d
Those are made up shapes, too.
TheVoiceOfRaison@thelemmy.club · 13 pts · 3d
The fact the Ivory Coast is land locked in this should have been an alarm to double check it.
miraclerandy@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 4d
The country highlight on the far west side is killing me. The line from it doesn’t point to anything!! Are you saying that country has moved?!
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 11 pts · 4d
I like that the Ivory Coast is not only in the wrong spot, it's not actually on any coast. It's right in the name.
GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 3d
Only if you can read a language other than English. Some people are probably wondering why they wear special coats in that African country.
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 4d
Everything is so stupid.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 6 pts · 4d
No, mostly just the US.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 2 pts · 3d
I'll say, the U.S. is openly trying for stupid harder than I've ever seen any other country try!
weew@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 3d
I mean, this is the country that keeps getting the Gulf of Mexico wrong...
TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 3d
Jesus fucking Christ, it's like they're TRYING to embarrass our entire nation from every single department possible. 10 years ago this would've amused me more than anything, even if only slightly. But now? Everyday is just another brand new stupid example of our own incompetence with somewhere around a 50/50 split between embarrassing and infuriating. I've never been a gung-ho, America-first, capital-P "Patriot", but I never would've even conceived that we would sink so low so quickly; every new rock-bottom simply becomes a new surface-layer to be strip-mined of any remaining shred of dignity, empathy, and humanity
Witchfire@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
These guys could strip mine NYC's bedrock with how hard they dig
owiseedoubleyou@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 3d
The onion was prophetic once again
hansolo@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 3d
Y'all, you can't convince me this wasn't intentional.
Intentionally sloppy. Intentional negligence. A presentation slide about grant money for HIV/AIDS prevention as a "Fuck You" to an entire continent? Sounds about right.
sangriaferret@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 3d
If you want to challenge your knowledge of geography and maps try travle.
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 4d
it was cute when it was me and i was about 11 trying to play along with the africa map on where in the world is carmen sandiego but not now.
quick_snail@feddit.nl · 3 pts · 3d
Iirc that show was created because like a quarter of US Americans couldn't identify the Pacific Ocean on the map
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 3d
MAGA kids didn't watch a show with an obvious Hispanic illegal alien sneaking into countries all over the world.
SippyCup@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
WELL WHY'D THEY PUT IT ALL THE WAY DOWN THERE if I'm supposed to know where it is?? I'm a fuckin tradie not a geologist
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 3d
I assumed this was a MAGA flex.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 3d
This is such a perfect illustration of US diplomacy, in just one simple picture. It's wonderful.
dustyData@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 3d
This is so wrong in so many ways that if you told me it was a The Onion article with a made up map, I would believe you. Nothing makes sense. The lines don't go anywhere, all the colors are mismatched. The position, but also the size and the shapes are all wrong. I would bet all the data is also made up and have nothing to do with reality.
green_goglin@thelemmy.club · 6 pts · 3d
Additionally:
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/us-government-map-africa-mislabels-every-country-global-conference-2026-07-30/
northernlights@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 4d
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Widdershins@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
This is terrible! Could somebody please.............. find Peter Mutharika? Get hold of this gentleman so I can make sense of all this. WHERE IS PETE?
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 3d
oil
cheap labour
diamonds
minerals
Seems simple enough.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Part of the problem is US geography is just that… it’s the states. People even outside America like learning where the states are, taking little quizzes.
Do you know the states of Germany?? The regions of France? The counties of Romania!?
And these are literal whole countries in Africa! Grow up America, nobody cares where Iowa is, please fucking learn where motherfucking Nigeria is ffs
SippyCup@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Um... E... East Romania. Transylvania... Umm.. South. South Romania. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC OF ROMANIA AND HER OUTER TERRITORIES. Um... West. The west one.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Alba is a fun one
atzanteol@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 3d
Most people know the area around them. Europeans included, it's just that the area around them is often other countries.
Europeans frequently underestimate how much larger the US really is.
dustyData@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Americans frequently overestimate how large their own country is. The US is about as large as all of the European union. But the US fits inside Africa nearly 4 times. Australia is roughly the same size as the US. So is China. Rusia is about 1.5 times the size of the US. The US is not special in any way, quit the exceptionalism.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 2 pts · 3d
Mercator projection shrinks Africa almost as much as it grows Greenland.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
This was super interesting
atzanteol@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 3d
Texas is bigger than France. Europeans. Specifically have little concept of that fact. "We know so many countries" is because of how small they are.
dustyData@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Yeah, But the US is a federation of States. It's not that deep to understand. A member of the EU can move freely from country to country just like people can do the same from state to state in the US. The difference is that you can cross France and reach Barcelona from Paris in the same time it takes to drive the distance of Los Angeles to Las Vegas, roughly 6 hours by train. Except Paris and Barcelona (1000 miles) are 3 times further apart than those two US cities (300mi). Infrastructure has a great impact in perception of space and distances. The US is not that big, but it can seem to be when the most common transportation method is the least efficient. Each state is about the same average size as most countries in the world. It's just that their transportation infrastructure (including highways) suck ass.
Even driving the highways let you do the distance in 10 hours. Twice the time but three times the distance.
Even then, being a small country doesn't stop the French from knowing that Africa is not a single country.
"Texas is larger than France" means nothing. My country is larger than Texas, and one of my states is larger than Switzerland but also larger than North Carolina. That's a non argument, that's just physics. Again, size is not some exceptional property of the US.
atzanteol@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2d
I've driven across France - it's not uncommon. I've also taken the train, it's much more expensive. In the US people fly because it's too big. Coast to coast is 4-5 hours by air.
It's not about travel efficiency, it's about distance in general. People are more knowledgeable about areas near them. People on the West Coast usa don't know about the East Coast as much.
Your argument depends on people being fundamentally different across the world, and they're not. It's racist.
dustyData@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
It's not racism to point out that a flight from the east coast of the US to the west coast is the exact same as a flight from Lisbon to Oslo. Physics don't bend according to flags. I'm just pointing out that this idea is the product of US exceptionalism and the arbitrariness of the human conceptualization of what a country is. France is as large as California. But being in the US doesnt mean California is magically larger. You're just deciding to compare different political and demographically distinct concepts.
Again, I'm not comparing people, I'm comparing transportation infrastructure. Of course people choose to fly or to drive on Europe according to distances. Just like in the US. It's you who are xenophobically insisting on portraying the US as special, when it is not.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Some more context, it's not that they just highlighted the wrong countries, the highlighted blobs aren't even countries.
Partial marks for Uganda being in the correct area, though the shape only vaguely resmbles the country.
The Nigeria one overlaps Nigeria a bit, though is mostly over Niger.
The westernmost one (whose label points at Namibia on the map instead of one of the text labels) does overlap Ivory Coast but mostly covers Ghana and Togo, along with a little of Benin and Nigeria.
The one labeled Ivory Coast covers some of Malawi, as well as Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique.
The one labeled Malawi covers parts of Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa.
The one labeled Mozambique is mostly within Ethiopia, though it looks like it dips down into Kenya as well.
Though maybe this is a map that wasn't intended to show countries but the person that changed the slide didn't know any African geography so couldn't tell.