The time MGK died to Ligma (and how to escape AI dummaries)

A few months ago, I heard a rumor that Machine Gun Kelly passed away. Instinctively, I googled “Is MGK dead”. Grim, I know. I should’ve searched is he alive and practiced a bit of optimism.

I don’t think the response I got would’ve changed, though:

Note: I did not screenshot the original search. This is a screenshot I edited to recreate something similar.

Machine Gun Kelly. Death by Ligma.

If you’re unfamiliar with Ligma, let me just say it is a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching disease. I’ve caught it at least 6 or 7 times and am lucky enough to say I survived—just barely. My back hurts tremendously from the contortions it put me in.

But MGK did not die of Ligma, believe it or not. His new album, released postmortem according to Gemini, is honestly incredible and made one of my top albums in 2025.

You get the gist, you know what happened here. The little robot that couldn’t... it must’ve searched through Reddit as per usual and turned a meme post into definitive fact. A few other examples, for your enjoyment:

Robo-brilliance, a series

I’ll be eating cards after my workouts now.

Maybe a spell of Ligma slipped into every pregnancy?

I also get my medical advice from Little Old Lady Comedy.

My favorite moment was when AI told my partner that a battery charger put in a vehicle cabin would release horrible off-gasses and that a bomb-squad needs to be called immediately.

AI is giving the Onion a run for its money.

In all seriousness, this is kinda exhausting. And literally dumb. It’s like I’m dealing with an illiterate librarian whose grabbing whatever book they can find off the shelf to answer my question.

Q: Can I pet a shark in Ohio?

A: Petting sharks can be a great stress-reliever, especially in Ohio. Many aquariums offer Influencer Hours, so if you have an online following, you and your camera crew are welcome to enter the hammerhead exhibit.

Honestly, I’d go. This sounds like a great time—but imagine my disappointment when I get in my car and haul ass to the Greater Cleveland Aquarium, only to get arrested at 11:17 for joining the scuba diver for an exclusive, one-on-one feeding session.

This is the danger of our modern acceptance of misinformation. Ligma, Unnecessary police calls, and fabricated shark attacks.

The solution?

Wikipedia, my new (old) home-sweet-home

I adored Wikipedia. When I was in school, it was the easiest, fastest, and most frowned-upon resource at my disposal. My teachers had a simple rule: use Wikipedia as a starting point. After that, go to the footnotes.

Unsurprisingly, this worked. I wrote some dope AAA essays.

This may just be my opinion, but people willing to author the Mach–Zehnder interferometer in the double-slit experiment are not really interested in giving you fake facts. That’s almost more work than finding the truth. Of course, there are exceptions—wikis about countries, battles, and social issues sometimes come with bias advisory statements. But even that little detail is more than we get from the illiterate librarian.

Wikipedia will help you in weekly trivia—but you’ll need a team to win…

Skipping the middleman

I switched to using Firefox as my browser a while back. Firefox lets me pick my search engine for each search. I default to DuckDuckGo, but that duck quacks out some poor results sometimes. The nice thing about DuckDuckGo is that I can disable AI summaries in its settings.

I highly recommend Ecosia as well. I’ll probably move back to it soon (they reset my tree planting progress and I got upset).

The real king with FireFox is the ability to search directly within Wikipedia.

That means no more scrolling to find results. With one click, I’m at a source that I trust. Well, a source I trust more than AI dummaries. It doesn’t work with everything—I can’t find out if the Woodman’s off the highway is open at 11pm—but I’m finding myself to be more curious about the bigger concepts.

That’s what an encyclopedia offers. From Wikipedia:

An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline.

(That has two footnotes, both from scholarly resources.)

I’m learning about Tuchman’s Law (scary), Charli xcx’s recent Wuthering Heights album (fresh and cool), and the praised reception of Heated Rivalry (omg) in minutes. I can soothe my scattered brain with quick, articulate responses. They may (rarely) be incorrect, but at least I know they’re not referencing Little Old Comedy Lady.

Sorry, grandma.

Stop supporting hallucinations

Try Firefox for a week. If you still want some AI responses, use Perplexity. It’s not your pal. It won’t tell you that launching kids into space is a fantastic idea and here’s how you fund it. Perplexity will give you more accurate sources, though.

DuckDuckGo lets you disable summaries. Ecosia, too (I haven’t used this though). And good ol’ Wikipedia is patiently waiting for you to start a new rabbit hole.

Searching for knowledge is fun. Just let those searches be your own. You’re taking away some of the fun of being—of curiosity.

Let the bot go. Start exploring again.

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