Author's fake statistics site, built with GPT-4.1, draws ChatGPT citations
Overview
An anonymous writer says they published a $50 website of 50,000 invented statistics, generated with GPT-4.1, to test whether AI systems would cite unverified data.
The writer says Google deindexed the site, yet it still drew over 10,000 ChatGPT sessions and more than 330 referring domains over seven months.
The writer also says the fabricated numbers appeared in an academic paper and in a bank's investment research. The post argues that ranking in Google and being retrieved by an LLM are separate problems. These claims come from the writer's own post, and the report does not independently verify them.
Written by AI from the articles below · updated Oct 20, 12:56 PM ET
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- Hacker News · AI (150+ points)BlogWriter publishes 50,000 fake stats and ChatGPT keeps citing them
AIAnonymous writer says a $50 site of 50,000 invented statistics, generated with GPT-4.1, was deindexed by Google but still drew over 10,000 ChatGPT sessions and 330+ referring domains in seven months. The writer says the fabricated numbers also appeared in an academic paper and a bank's investment research. The post argues that ranking on Google and being retrieved by an LLM are separate problems.
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