Setting the record straight.
I suppose, at the end, artificial intelligence is good for something. Last night as the sun was setting, Surfer Magazine’s robot got on the tools and decided that Carissa Moore had called for a boycott of the Paris Olympics over the Teahupo’o judging tower situation. As you are well aware, the machine believes strange things when it comes to our surfing. ChatGPT, for example, declared that Duke Kahanamoku was a gay icon. It also wrongly suggested that the august surfboard shaper Maurice Cole had been inducted into surfing’s Hall of Fame in 2006 even though, as everyone knows, he expressly and vociferously refused that shame.
Back to the universally adored Moore, though. As pointed out this morning by the noted longtime tour and media observer Lincoln Eather, SurferBot’s baldfaced lying about what she actually said had real potential consequences. “C’mon Surfer Magazine – you’re better than this,” Eather penned. “No where in the article does it state (or any videos you linked to, or anything on Riss’ profiles) does she state what you wrote in the headline. Click bait comes & goes, and can be funny. This borders on fvcked, you’re putting words in her mouth and at a level that could have kick-back on her from the Olympics… Do better.”
BeachGrit dutifully reposted, calling Surfer to account which, in turn, led to a Carissa Moore response.
“Mahalo BeachGrit for setting it straight for me,” she wrote. “I never said I was boycotting the Olympics. I am very saddened by how the new tower plans are negatively affecting my friends and family in Teahupo’o and of course the environment..” She continued to clearly state her position, in human words, on matters before including another slide calling Surfer to account.
BeachGrit shocking readers with its instant pivot from “sucking” and “not being liked by anyone” according to icons Nathan Florence and Koa Rothman or “cheap and character revealing” according to Kelly Slater to “brave defender of professional surfers’ honor.”
Thanks, Surfer.
