The National Weather Service has withdrawn a wind forecast from its social media platforms after AI generated created fictitious town names including “Orangeotild” and “Whata Bod” on a map of Idaho.
The Washington Post reports that the National Weather Service faced embarrassment over the weekend when an AI-generated weather forecast map displayed invented town names across Idaho’s Camas Prairie region. The incident occurred as the agency expands its experimentation with artificial intelligence tools across various operations.
The forecast was initially shared on social media by the weather office in Missoula, Montana, on Saturday. The post encouraged residents to “Hold onto your hats” and indicated that “Orangeotild” faced a 10 percent chance of high winds, while “Whata Bod” to the south would experience calmer conditions.
The map contained multiple spelling errors and geographical inaccuracies beyond just the two most prominently featured fake towns. According to the National Weather Service, these mistakes resulted directly from the use of generative AI technology.
This represents at least the second such error in recent months. A November 25 post from the Rapid City, South Dakota, office also featured misspelled locations and displayed the Google Gemini logo on its forecast graphic. The National Weather Service did not confirm whether that earlier image was also produced using generative AI.
NWS spokeswoman Erica Grow Cei addressed the situation by stating that AI is not commonly utilized for public-facing content, though its use is not prohibited. She explained that a local office had used artificial intelligence to create a base map for displaying forecast information, but the map inadvertently showed illegible city names.
The agency removed the post containing the inaccurate map on Monday, with updated social media posts with corrected information were subsequently distributed.
Cei emphasized that the National Weather Service is exploring strategic approaches to optimize service delivery for Americans, including implementing AI where appropriate. She stated that the agency will continue carefully evaluating results when AI is implemented to ensure accuracy and efficiency, and will discontinue use in scenarios where the technology proves ineffective.
The NWS map is likely the result of AI “hallucinations,” in which systems dream up false information in an attempt to satisfy their human users’ requests. Breitbart News previously reported on the risk of AI hallucinations including to lawyers using AI tools:
In an internal letter shared in a court filing, Morgan & Morgan’s chief transformation officer cautioned the firm’s more than 1,000 attorneys that citing fake AI-generated cases in court documents could lead to serious consequences, including potential termination. This warning comes after one of the firm’s lead attorneys, Rudwin Ayala, cited eight cases in a lawsuit against Walmart that were later discovered to have been generated by ChatGPT, an AI chatbot.
The incident has raised concerns about the growing use of AI tools in the legal profession and the potential risks associated with relying on these tools without proper verification. Walmart’s lawyers urged the court to consider sanctions against Morgan & Morgan, arguing that the cited cases “seemingly do not exist anywhere other than in the world of Artificial Intelligence.”
In response to the incident, Ayala was immediately removed from the case and replaced by his supervisor, T. Michael Morgan, Esq. Morgan expressed “great embarrassment” over the fake citations and agreed to pay all fees and expenses related to Walmart’s reply to the erroneous court filing. He emphasized that this incident should serve as a “cautionary tale” for both his firm and the legal community as a whole.
Read more at the Washington Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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