The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
RSS feeds: v0.91; v1.0 (RDF); v2.0; Atom.
9:15am on Sunday, 30th August, 2026:
Weird
Going through Volume II of Designing Virtual Worlds, I found myself in need of an academic paper that told me how many abandoned villages there are in England. I knew it was somewhere around 3,000, but didn't have a reliable source.
I typed the following into Google, trusting its AI to do the legwork:
"I want an academic quality research paper that states how many abandoned settlements there are in England. It's fine if they're restricted to a particular era or county."
It certainly delivered. It produced a .pdf with exactly the information in it that I needed. It was perfect, except for one problem: the AI had written it itself, on the fly.
Next time I want to find an academic paper in a field that isn't my own, I shall be adding the words "peer-reviewed" to my prompt.
Latest entries.
Archived entries.
About this blog.
Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).