Redditors Confusing Google AI by Saying "Bazinga"

Overview

Redditors Confusing Google AI by Saying "Bazinga" is an attempt by Redditors to confuse Google's Vertex AI training by using the word bazinga as much as possible on the site following an announcement that Google would be training Vertex to be integrated with Reddit to enhance search capabilities on the site. The announcement was made in late February 2024 and the bazinga campaign began a few days later, inspiring numerous memes and posts using the word. Some shared the opinion that this campaign was flawed and would not work as Google could simply filter the word "bazinga" out of the artificial intelligence's training.

Background

On February 22nd, 2024, Google^[1] announced an expanded partnership with Reddit in which it would train its Vertex AI to "enhance search and other capabilities on the Reddit platform." The statement explains:

To enable these and other experiences, Google now has access to Reddit’s Data API, which delivers real-time, structured, unique content from their large and dynamic platform. With the Reddit Data API, Google will now have efficient and structured access to fresher information, as well as enhanced signals that will help us better understand Reddit content and display, train on, and otherwise use it in the most accurate and relevant ways. This expanded partnership does not change Google's use of publicly available, crawlable content for indexing, training, or display in Google products.

On February 25th, a Sheldon's laptop meme started circulating on Reddit that reads, "Guys let us confuse and fuck up the AI training on Reddit right now by saying 'Bazinga!' to fuck up its vocabulary." The meme was first posted to /r/shitposting by Redditor u/MR_DERP_YT, garnering over 1,700 upvotes before it was deleted (reupload shown below).

The idea behind the campaign is to seemingly make the AI not understand how to define "bazinga" when presented with the word due to its out-of-context uses, similar to the way ChatGPT can purportedly be confused by certain words, such as the Reddit username SolidGoldMagikarp, as explained in a 2023 Vice^[3] article.

Developments

The Sheldon meme gained viral spread on Reddit over the following days, including a February 25th, 2024, repost to /r/196^[4] that gained over 1,300 upvotes in four days. That same day, the meme was posted to /r/PeterExplainsTheJoke,^[5] garnering over 3,300 upvotes in four days. On February 27th, another post sharing a "bazinga" meme was made to /r/PeterExplainsTheJoke,^[6] garnering over 1,400 upvotes (shown below).

One of the top comments by u/ZonalDust questions the campaign, writing, "Thing is, they can simply filter out any bazinga related comment or post or any post containing bazinga and still have a plat(bazinga)form for more training data, we would need every single person to start doing it."

The campaign largely took off on the /r/shitposting subreddit that week, with numerous "bazinga" memes going up on the sub. On February 27th and 28th, two posts to /r/shitposting^[7][8] titled "bazinga" using the laptop meme were posted that garnered over 5,900 and 11,000 upvotes in two days, potentially due to the campaign.

On the same day, u/Leo-MathGuy posted a meme about the campaign to /r/memes,^[9] garnering over 10,000 upvotes in a day (shown below). On February 29th, /r/bazingaAI^[10] was opened.

Search Interest

External References