Category Archives: Computers

Another AI hallucination

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Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, provided another direct example of an answer to a question that was flat-out wrong.

It came on Sunday, while I was writing a post about a confidentiality rule adopted by the Maui County Board of Ethics, which is similar to two state laws that were found to be unconstitutional more than 30 years ago.

I was the plaintiff in a lawsuit that successfully challenged a provision of the state’s campaign spending law in 1991-1992. The decision by Judge Alan Kay of the Federal District Court for the District of Hawaii cited an earlier Hawaii case, John Roe v. Akamine, et al. (Civil No. 91-00252 DAE).

This lawsuit challenged a law prohibiting anyone from disclosing any information about a complaint about a public employee or official with the State Ethics Commission, including the person who filed the complaint.

The challenge to this provision of the state ethics law was quickly successful. The state agreed the law was unconstitutional, and it was struck down by Judge David Ezra.

But I was unable to find much more information about the Akamine case. Documents from the case are not available via the federal courts’ PACER document system, and routine searches didn’t turn up anything more.

So I asked Gemini for any information it could find on the Akamine case. To aid in its search, I pointed to the citation in the court decision.

Its answer went wildly awry.

It was apparently a situation, as described by others, in which the inability to find relevant information prompted Gemini to wrongly “make up” an answer meant to satisfy my original inquiry.

Here, Gemini began with an clearly erroneous premise–that Roe v. Akamine was a challenge to the campaign spending law, and it went downhill from there.

Another Gemini hallucination

A 1991 federal lawsuit in Hawaii, identified as John Roe v. Akamine, et al., Civil No. 91-00252 DAE, took aim at the confidentiality clause within the state’s campaign finance laws. While details of the case remain largely in legal archives, it played a pivotal role as a precursor to a subsequent, more widely publicized case that successfully overturned the secrecy provision on First Amendment grounds.

The “John Roe” lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, challenged the constitutionality of Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 11-216(d). This statute mandated that all proceedings related to a complaint filed with the Campaign Spending Commission—including the complaint itself, investigations, and hearings—remain confidential until a finding of probable cause.

Presiding over the case was U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra. His order in the John Roe matter became a significant precedent cited in the 1993 case Lind v. Grimmer. In that later case, journalist Ian Lind successfully argued that the confidentiality provision was an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech. The court in Lind v. Grimmer referenced Judge Ezra’s prior order in John Roe v. Akamine to support its decision to strike down the statute.

The use of the pseudonym “John Roe” suggests the plaintiff wished to remain anonymous, a common practice in cases where individuals fear reprisal for challenging a government entity or law. The defendants, “Akamine, et al.,” were likely officials associated with the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission or another state agency responsible for enforcing the campaign finance laws at the time. Despite searches for individuals with the surname Akamine in relevant government positions in 1991, a definitive identification of the named defendant has not been publicly established.

While the full complaint, court filings, and the complete text of Judge Ezra’s order in John Roe v. Akamine are not readily available in public online legal databases, its legal significance is clear. The case was an early and influential challenge to the secrecy surrounding campaign finance complaints in Hawaii, setting the stage for the eventual invalidation of the confidentiality law and greater transparency in the state’s election oversight.

Also see:

“I Asked Google’s AI Who It Was. It Lied,” iLind.net, July 4, 2025

A bit of fresh Air

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Well, I traded in my two year old iPhone 15 Pro for a new super-thin iPhone 17 Air! I justified the expense to myself by remembering that I didn’t give in to the recent temptation to buy an expensive new camera that I’ve had my eye on.

The iPhone shopping happened late on Sunday afternoon at the Kahala Apple Store.

It’s only 2/3 the thickness of my old phone, and much thinner than my Apple Watch (see photo to the right). It’s really a pleasure to handle, although after using it for a while and wearing the new off, it will just feel like another phone.

This Air model has been criticized for having less battery capacity than the other iPhone 17 series, but that misses the point. It’s will run considerably longer on a charge than the phone it is replacing! That’s plenty! And its camera lacks all the bells and whistles of the latest 17 Pro models. But I’ve got a drawer full of cameras and don’t need the latest/greatest iPhone camera. The one in the Air is, again, more than good enough!

Migrating to a new phone is usually straightforward. I’ve made most of these transitions at home without any major problems. This time I decided to go to the Apple Store to see the phone before buying it, and that led to a few glitches in the process. I won’t describe them here, but it meant that we were trapped waiting at the store for too long, and even then I finished the process later at home.

There have been a couple of other hiccups while reinstalling a few things in my phone’s Apple Wallet. No major issues, at least not yet.

Meda is still using her iPhone 12 Mini, although I’m tempting her to upgrade as well. So if you would like to buy a used iPhone Mini, let me know (email ian@ilind.net).

With any luck, the “Service Unavailable” problem has been resolved

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Since sometime early Thursday, anyone trying to leave a comment or use a link to read a previous post got a “Service Unavailable” error message. Many of you emailed to let me know of the issue, and once alerted, I also quickly ran into the error as well. That’s when I noticed that there have been no comments on any post since Thursday. Not normal.

The tech support staff at my hosting company, Hostrocket.com, have been very good in communicating with me as they tried to track down the source of the problem. The error message itself pointed to a server resource issue, and that’s where they started. When that didn’t work, the started tracing possible security settings being out of whack.

I also sought the counsel of Blaine Fergerstrom, a friend from my Star-Bulletin days of a quarter-century ago. He was the genius who got the Star-Bulletin’s website running ahead of the much better resourced folks across the hall at the Honolulu Advertiser, and he has run lots of websites over the years. Earlier today, he sent a link to a document concerning the type of error message (503) and possible ways of fixing it.

Eventually, I hit on the suggestion that a WordPress plugin could have created a conflict that triggered the errors. Following instructions, I deactivated the eight plugins that I’ve been using, then added them back, one by one, check for the frustrating error message after each one was put back into service.

Bingo!
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Disaster narrowly avoided

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[This was first posted over on Facebook earlier this morning]

Siri just saved my day, and my week.

The crisis arose early this morning, soon after we were seated in the Trivet restaurant just off the main lobby of the JW Marriott Hotel in Auckland. We were shown to a table along the window, and were working on our first cup of black coffee as we began thinking through our breakfast options.

I was checking out the morning news on my iPad when disaster hit.

It started when I went to take a look at the Wall Street Journal. A main title page appeared, just white screen with “Wall Street Journal” emblazoned across the center.

And then it the screen froze.

The WSJ page of news headlines never appeared, the iPad stopped responding to anything. It was completely frozen. Nonresponsive. I couldn’t get out of the white WSJ page, and the iPad failed to respond to anything of the usual things.

There’s usually a simple solution to situations like this. Power down and restart. So I pressed the top “on-off” button and a volume button at the same time, and waited. After a few seconds, this combo should lead to a another button that will shut down the iPad.

But this time, nothing happened.

I tried several times, alternating between the up volume and down volume buttons. No effect. The killer WSJ screen continued be displayed with no viable options apparent.

For a few minutes, I was stumped, and began considering the prospect of spending the rest of our time in Auckland without access to my the wonders that the iPad . It wasn’t a pretty picture. Depressing, really, and an indication of how addicted we are to digital communication and maintaining our presence in the digital world.

At this point, I started looking at the screen as kind of an “escape room” challenge. This involved tapping different places on the screen to see whether I could generate any reaction. There was a WSJ logo up in the top left corner, but it went nowhere. I tried taping the usual places, screen corners, etc. I tried swiping up, down, and sideways. One finger, two fingers, multiple fingers. Nothing I did got a reaction.

But then I noticed the horizontal line at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on it seemed to have no effect. Then I tried a “click and hold” on that line, and the edges of the screen started glowing, indicating Siri has been summoned.

Another few seconds, and a query appeared from Siri.

“How can I help you?” Or something to that effect.

I first asked if I had correctly recalled the two-button move as “shut down” command. Siri confirmed this was the correct say to power down.

So I explained my ipad would not power down.

And Siri instantly replied, “Do you want to power down this device?”

Do I ever!! YES!

The screen went black. And I felt a huge rush of relief.

When I rebooted, all was well. The iPad awoke, the frozen WSJ screen was gone, and I was free to share the moment with you.

I should have realized Siri could take control of the iPad like this even though the device seemed to be nonreponsive. And now I wonder whether a “hey, Siri” would have summoned its help earlier despite the frozen screen.

No, I’m not going to try and recreate the issue to test that hypothesis. And I’ll probably avoid rechecking the WSJ anytime soon.