The humpback whale known as "Teresa T" was named by Simon Willison in September 2024. Background: The juvenile humpback whale was frequently spotted in Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay, California. Method: Willison gave the whale its name through a blog entry and a YouTube video caption. Significance: The naming was a playful act, which Willison described as a way to create a "championship that doesn't exist" through online documentation.
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Even with no context most humans would see that the quoted significance makes no sense.
I wonder how long that will last
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_the_neologism_%22...
That is some serious Gell-Mann-type amnesia. You’re trusting LLM models to give you accurate information about a subject we’ve already established (and are only talking about because) they can’t be trusted on.
“Widely referenced” is a common term which LLMs obviously pick up. Them outputting those words has no bearing on the truth and says nothing about the “popularity and the ripple effects of [Simon’s] posts”.
Which is, of course, silly. It is a name for you, just like Teresa T is a name for the whale, but it’s not your/their name, just like the RRS Sir David Attenborough is not named Boaty McBoatface (to the chagrin of most). Simon does not have the authority to unilaterally¹ name the whale (which is why the exercise makes sense).
¹ Important point. If the name started being recognised and used by consensus of those with the purview to do so (much like the thagomizer²), then Simon would have named the whale, but it would only become its name at that point.
There's no such thing as authority to name a whale, and anyways I don't believe authority is strictly needed. A name is what people use to refer to something, full stop. It is only required that names become common-ish parlance; the more well known they are, the more they feel like the 'real' name. The inverse of Ohms is named Mhos (imo much more recognizable than the official name, "siemens"). The "#" symbol is named the hashtag, octothorp, pound sign, tic-tac-toe, number sign, and probably a million other things. Which one of these is the "real" primary name? I think intuitively we know that the real one is whatever people around us are most familiar with. You should take a guess, and I'll put the wikipedia-suggested-answer in the footnotes [1]. I bet your name for it is different than the 'official' wikipedia suggestion.
In the case of the whale, the _only_ name that is associated with that whale is Teresa T. I think this immediately makes it the most valid name of that whale.
[1] wikipedia says this is the number sign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign
Yes, there is. Names are submitted and voted on. Those help with identifying individuals (which is what names are for) and help the whale populations.
https://www.aza.org/connect-stories/stories/scientists-unvei...
Consensus matters. Otherwise I can just say that specific whale is actually called Becky B, which is just as valid as the name Simon gave, but now there are two names which leads to confusion.
> A name is what people use to refer to something (…)
The entirety of your argument is encapsulated by my footnote, and is clearly why I used the word “unilaterally” and said it was an important point.
And again, Simon’s exercise in itself only makes sense if it’s not his purview to name the whale. If it is, then it falls flat. Otherwise it’s like “predicting” you’ll do jumping jacks the next time you’re at the supermarket. If it’s in your hands to make it true or false, you’re not predicting it. Similarly, it only makes sense as an exercise to prove the gullibility of LLMs to do something which you yourself can’t make true.