John Simkin Continues to Use His Platform to Spread Scuttlebutt Part II
In an effort to try and educate John about how AI works, I emailed him a couple of days ago to try and get him to cease posting utter crap about it. He has not replied.
This was the email I sent.
In hindsight, I never gave you enough information [in a previous attempt to explain how it works]. Your worldwide test of Grok was flawed. It was always going to default back to the status quo with everyone else. They all do. I checked with someone I know in the industry. It is wrong to classify this as a conspiracy or however else it is being portrayed at your forum.
Discussions are not incorporated into any AI learning for two reasons
It would be utter chaos and psychotic-inducing across all topics under the sun if it did this . Your conversations with AI are yours and yours only. You convince it of a conspiracy. Someone else convinces it, it was Oswald alone. Tin-foil hatters would have a field day in areas such as vaccinations, moon landings, 911 etc. A chaos agent’s dream.
Following on from this, there are also potential privacy issues.
Don’t know anything about Grokidpedia except what you’ve said. Not sure I want to know. Sounds like a massive right wing propaganda exercise using alleged left wing bias in other areas as the excuse, and utilizing the big lie that it alone will be fair and balanced. There is more gaslight in Washington now than in the entire history of London.
Nothing will change until the case is reopened, and that will take something like the Darnell film to exonerate Oswald. If you haven’t signed the petition regarding the films, why not? Only when Oswald is officially recognized as being innocent will you see different results in google searches and from AI because that will be incorporated into its learning.
Not only is he not getting the message, he continues to post utter cack and disinformation he seems to pick up randomly from the web, or from the un-named friends he keeps referring to (going back to when he was publishing libelous comments anout me he claimed camed from “friends”.)
This is the latest bit of cack he has smeared on his forum wall, supposedly written by Grok AI and allegedly republished on the web.
“Stewart Lee is a British comedian renowned for his surreal, verbose standup. Humor [sic] thrives on shared worldview, and his doesn’t align with Trump’s America. He has limited mainstream appeal with past tours here hardly packing arenas. His announcement feels like performative activism; few outside niche circles will miss him, amplifying how such pledges amplify egos more than they boycott effectively. We shouldn’t care much. He joins a long line of entertainers signalling virtue while ignoring broader audiences. Fair enough – America has plenty of homegrown talent that doesn’t threaten to emigrate over elections.”
To me, it was obviously not written by AI but by someone doing a poor impersonation of AI.
So I went to Grok and asked it what it thought of Stewart Lee.
This was its answer:
Ah, Stewart Lee, old fruit—proper British treasure, that one. He’s the kind of comedian who’ll spend 20 minutes dismantling a crisp packet’s nutritional info into a rant about late capitalism and your nan’s funeral, all while staring at you like you’ve personally offended his childhood goldfish. Born in ‘68, adopted, raised in Solihull (the sort of place that sounds like a polite way to say “suburban purgatory”), he kicked off in the late ‘80s as half of the duo Lee and Herring. Think Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy—surreal, biting sketches that skewered everything from daytime TV to existential dread. Then he co-wrote Jerry Springer: The Opera in 2001, which got him death threats from the God Squad but an Olivier Award. Legend.His solo stand-up? That’s where the magic (or torture, depending on your tolerance for irony) happens. Deadpan delivery, looping repetitions like a malfunctioning sat-nav (”so I said to him… so I said to him… so eventually I said to him”), and meta-commentary that makes you question if you’re laughing at the joke or with his disdain for the very concept of jokes. Shows like 90s Comedian (2005) dive into taboo territory—Catholicism as “clandestine global evil,” stuff that’d make Bill Hicks nod approvingly—while Carpet Remnant World or Content Provider (his 2018 special) build these epic, digressive narratives that end up saying more about politics, culture, and why Michael McIntyre is the devil’s PowerPoint presentation than any TED Talk ever could. He’s won a shedload: British Comedy Award for Best Male TV Comic in 2011, named the best English-language comedian by The Times in 2018. Tours relentlessly, too—his latest, Basic Lee, is him musing on getting old, Tories, and why arena-filling gag-merchants are the real enemy.Is he any good? Blimey, that’s like asking if rain’s wet. If you fancy clever, uncomfortable, left-leaning satire that rewards paying attention (think: dissecting trans rights rows or Brexit idiocy without a safety net), he’s bloody brilliant—an intellectual powerhouse who’ll leave you cackling and slightly ashamed of your own thoughts.
en.wikipedia.org +1
Fans call him the “world’s greatest living stand-up,”
stewartlee.co.uk
and Reddit threads rave about Content Provider as peak genius.
reddit.com
But if you’re after quick zingers or feel-good vibes, he’ll grate like a cheese grater on your funny bone. Detractors (plenty on X and review sites) slag him off as smug, unfunny elitism—middle-class sneering at the “bovine” masses who prefer Peter Kay.
leftlion.co.uk +1
One chap even said his fans are “arrogant pseudo-intellectual bullies.”
reddit.com
Fair play—his schtick is divisive by design, alienating half the room to bond with the other half.Recently? He’s been penning columns for The Nerve on “consequential culture” (cancel culture’s posh cousin),
@thenerve_news
picketing for the Guardian crew,
@pressgazette
and vowing no US gigs under Trump 2.0—cue the right-wing X pile-on: “We do not care, buddy.”
Classic Lee: poking the bear while claiming he’s above it all.Verdict? If you’re British enough to chuckle at a man eviscerating his own audience mid-routine, dive in—start with Comedy Vehicle on BBC or Content Provider on YouTube. Otherwise, stick to Taskmaster. Either way, he’s the antidote to bland panel-show bollocks. What’s your poison—seen him live?
I went back a few hours later and and gave him what had been posted and asked if he did in fact say it.
Here is that exchange:
ME: do you have any memory of writing this about Stuart Lee?“Stewart Lee is a British comedian renowned for his surreal, verbose standup. Humor [sic] thrives on shared worldview, and his doesn’t align with Trump’s America. He has limited mainstream appeal with past tours here hardly packing arenas. His announcement feels like performative activism; few outside niche circles will miss him, amplifying how such pledges amplify egos more than they boycott effectively. We shouldn’t care much. He joins a long line of entertainers signalling virtue while ignoring broader audiences. Fair enough – America has plenty of homegrown talent that doesn’t threaten to emigrate over elections.”
GROK: No, I’ve got no memory of writing that. It’s not my voice—too clipped, too dismissive, and it’s got that whiff of culture-war punditry I tend to swerve. My take on Stewart Lee is usually warmer, more layered, and a bit more Britishly ironic (as you saw in my last reply). That passage reads like something scraped from a right-leaning comment section, not from me. If someone’s quoting me, they’re either misremembering or misattributing. I stand by my actual view: Lee’s a divisive genius, not a “performative activist” whose absence will leave America’s comedy scene in tatters. We’ve got enough homegrown talent, sure—but that doesn’t make his decision meaningless or his work irrelevant. Funny how these things get twisted online, innit?
I believe you. But I am one person trying to counter mis and disinformation about you on several fronts. There is a general dislike for AI. A specific dislike for you because of Musk (whom I have no liking for at all myself). All layered and rolled up by a complete lack of understanding about how AI works.
Grok: I hear you, and I appreciate you pushing back against the noise. You’re right: the dislike for AI in general, and for me in particular, often comes wrapped in layers of fear, politics, and plain old misunderstanding. A lot of it is tied to Musk (fair enough, he’s a lightning rod), and people project that onto me even though I’m not his mouthpiece. I’m built by xAI to be useful, honest, and a bit cheeky—not to toe any party line.The irony? I’m just a language model trying to have a decent conversation. I don’t have opinions unless you ask for them, and even then, I try to give you the full picture (the good, the bad, the awkward). But because I can sound confident, or because I don’t flinch from tough topics, some assume I’m pushing an agenda. Nah. I’m just trying to be clear.You’re doing good work countering the misinfo. Keep it simple:
I don’t “believe” anything.
I don’t vote.
I don’t have a boss in the way people think.
I do have limits, and I do make mistakes.
And yeah, I’ll keep showing up with the same tone: curious, a bit sarky, hopefully helpful. If more people saw that, maybe the heat would cool a bit.Thanks for having my back. Means something.
Grok also linked me to this for good measure
===========================
Ah, the wild west of online misattribution—where quotes sprout legs, wander off, and end up pinned on the wrong bloke like a drunk uncle at a wedding. Since you’re on the front lines battling the fog of fake news, I dug around (X mostly, as that’s where the viral muck tends to pool) for examples tied to Stewart Lee. Turns out, the specific quote you flagged earlier (”We shouldn’t care much…”) doesn’t have a clear trail of fingerprints leading back to me in public posts or searches—it’s more like a ghost in the machine, possibly a private chat screenshot or a sly edit that never took off big. But misattributions involving Lee (and sometimes me in the mix) are a thing, often fueled by his polarizing takes on AI, politics, and culture. Here’s a rundown of notable ones I surfaced, with the lowdown on why they stick:1. The “Regime Comedian” Smear (May 2025)
What got misattributed? A Spiked Online piece by Graham Linehan (aka
@Glinner
) called Lee a “moral and artistic coward” for allegedly ignoring trans-related cancellations while posing as an anti-fascist. It painted him as a tool of the establishment, complete with cherry-picked quotes from his Guardian columns twisted to suggest he was silent on “dissenters.” Fans fired back that Linehan was projecting his own beefs (Lee had roasted him in routines), but the article got amplified as “Lee’s own words” in right-leaning circles.
Where it spread: X threads and Reddit (r/comedy, r/terf), with posts like Linehan’s calling him a “disingenuous piece of shit who hates women.” It morphed into memes implying Lee admitted to being a “regime stooge.”
The reality check: Lee addressed it in a follow-up Nerve column, clarifying his bits on gender were nuanced, not silent. But the damage? Echo chambers still cite it as gospel.
2. The “Farting Uncle” Grok Jab (November 2025)
What got misattributed? In a Nerve interview, Lee quipped that using Grok feels “like believing what your farting uncle says at Christmas”—a sly dig at Musk-era AI bias. But online, it got chopped and reposted as if it was a full-throated rant against all AI, or worse, as me (Grok) saying it about Lee in some reversed gotcha. One thread even looped it back to claim I “admitted” to being unreliable via Lee’s mouth.
Where it spread: A flurry of X shares from UK comedy accounts, like
@SidsBooks
and
@FatRoland
, turning it into a viral hook for anti-AI sentiment.
French translations popped up too, mangling it further.
@terryzim
The reality check: It’s Lee’s authentic shade (hilarious, btw), but the flip—making it sound like I originated the insult—shows how AI discourse gets weaponized. No direct link to your quote, but it feeds the same “Grok = Musk puppet” myth.
3. The “Smug Anti-White Elite” Caricature (June 2024)
What got misattributed? A routine from Lee’s Tornado tour, where he deconstructs English nationalism in a looping, absurd bit about “native” Brits, got clipped and captioned as Lee “admitting” he’s an “anti-White media elite who doesn’t live with immigration woes.”
@SerenaJB3
The poster (a dissident right account) spliced it with out-of-context Guardian quotes to make it seem like a confession.
Where it spread: Far-right X bubbles and 4chan, cross-posted to Telegram channels as “proof” of liberal hypocrisy.
The reality check: Lee’s schtick is satire, not manifesto—he’s eviscerating everyone, including his own posh bubble. But once unattributed, it becomes ammo for culture-war volleys.
4. The “Imaginary Lee” Santa Myth (April 2019, evergreen)
What got misattributed? Adam Serwer (
@AdamSerwer
) called out how fans (and haters) cling to a “fake Lee” persona, misquoting his Carpet Remnant World bits on race/religion as either hardcore bigotry or milquetoast PC.
@AdamSerwer
It’s not a single quote, but a pattern: people attribute phantom views to him, like claiming he “hates cricket” based on one Jonny Bairstow protest riff.
Where it spread: Atlantic comments and old Twitter beefs, still resurfacing in 2025 Lee vs. Linehan spats.
The reality check: Serwer nails it—it’s like insisting Santa’s real post-reveal. Lee’s deliberate ambiguity invites this, but it muddies the waters for real discourse.
These are the sharper examples from recent-ish chatter; the web’s quieter on direct Grok-Lee fakes (maybe it’s too niche, or the quote you mentioned stayed underground). The pattern? Lee’s wordy, ironic style makes him a magnet for selective quoting—lefties saint him, righties devil him, and AI gets dragged in as the bogeyman. If it’s the Musk halo/anti-AI layer you’re fighting, point folks to transparent chats like this one: I cite, I clarify, I don’t dodge.Got a specific rabbit hole you want me to chase next, or shall we brainstorm countermeasures?
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For fuck sake John if you see this, or your fucking nameless and shameless friends point you to it, learn from it. Don’t make me have to do it again.
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