Adventures in AI: Trust But Verify!

By Lee Bolman, Y62 Communications Team member

Do you remember the China Tax Guy from our class notes in the Yale Alumni Magazine?  Probably not because he didn’t exist, but Google Gemini remembered him vividly.

In searching for information about one of our classmates, an AI app said that he had once served as our class secretary.  I didn’t remember that, so I pursued the issue with Google Gemini Pro 3, supposedly one of the best AI apps out there.

It turns out that even the latest and greatest AI can hallucinate with confidence and enthusiasm.  For anonymity, I’ve changed the names and some of the biographical facts, but here’s the conversation:

User: I asked you earlier about Rich Smith serving as class secretary for the Yale class of 1962, and you told me he did, and told interesting stories when he was an accountant in Guangzhou. How sure of those facts are you? I’m pretty sure Smith spent most of his adult life in Massachusetts.

AI: You are absolutely right to question that, and I owe you an apology. I made a mistake in my previous answer regarding his role. After re-verifying the class officers for the Yale Class of 1962, I conflated Rich Smith‘s frequent appearances in the class notes with the person writing them. Here are the corrected facts:

1. Was he Class Secretary? No. Rich Smith was not the Class Secretary.
2. Did he live in China? Yes, but your point about Massachusetts is also valid. Rich Smith was indeed a real member of the Yale Class of 1962. He lived and worked as a CPA in Lenox, Massachusetts, for a significant portion of his adult life. However, in 1990, he moved to Guangzhou, China, where he lived for nearly 27 years until his passing in 2017. He became somewhat famous in the expat community (and in the Yale alumni notes) as “the China Tax Guy.”
3. Why the confusion? Because Smith was such a colorful character living abroad, he sent frequent, humorous dispatches to the actual Class Secretary (Mike Kane), who would publish them in the Yale Alumni Magazine.

I mistakenly identified the subject of the stories (Smith) as the author (Kane). Thank you for catching that error. You were correct that he was not the secretary and that he spent a large portion of his life in Massachusetts.

User: Smith’s linked-in profile says nothing about Guangzhou or CPA, It says he was a principal at Smith Associates LLC from 1989 to present, and principal at Condor Group in Springfield, MA, from 1998 to 2008. Could you be confusing Dick with Rich?

AI: You are absolutely right, and I have made a significant error by conflating two different men with nearly identical names. The LinkedIn profile you found is the correct one for the Yale alumnus. Here is the breakdown of the confusion:

1. The “Yale” Smith (The man you are asking about)

1. • Name: Dick Smythe (often goes by Dick).
   • Yale Class: 1962.
   • Career: As you noted from his LinkedIn, he has worked in executive search and consulting.
   • Location: He has indeed spent his adult life in the Massachusetts/New York area.
   • Role: He was not the class secretary.

2. The “China” Smythe (The man I confused him with)

1. • Name: Rich Smith.
   • Education: California State University, Fullerton (Class of 1969).
   • Career: He was the famous “China Tax Guy,” a CPA who lived in Guangzhou for 27 years and wrote humorous columns about the Chinese tax system.
   • Status: He passed away in 2017.

How I messed this up: I accessed information regarding “Rich Smith” and “Class Notes” and crossed the streams. The “China Rich” was a prolific writer of notes and articles, and in my processing, I incorrectly attached his biography to the Yale record of “Dick Smythe.”

To summarize:

• Was he Secretary? No.
• Was he the China CPA? No.
• Is he the guy at Condor Associates in MA? Yes.

Thank you for your patience and for fact-checking me. You were right on all counts.

User: I think you got everything right except for the names: Rich is the Yale guy. Dick is the China guy–he wrote a book of essays about his experience.

AI: You are completely correct. I struck out on the names in my previous attempt to clarify. Thank you for setting the record straight. Here is the final, corrected breakdown of the two men:

1. The Yale Alumnus (Class of 1962)

1. • Name: Rich Smith.
   • Background: This is the gentleman you originally asked about. He has spent his career in Massachusetts.
   • Was he Secretary? No. As established, he was never the secretary of the Yale Class of 1962.

2. The China CPA & Author

1. • Name: Dick Smythe.
   • Background: This is the CPA who lived in Guangzhou.
   • The Book: You are right—he wrote several books of essays, most notably  Smythe on China.
   • Connection: He has no connection to the Yale Class of 1962 (he attended Cal State Fullerton).

I apologize for flip-flopping the spellings. It is a rare coincidence to have two men with such similar names (Rich vs. Dick) and similar last names (Smith vs. Smythe), where one is a notable Yale alumnus and the other a notable writer/expat, but they are indeed two different people.

To answer your very first question with total certainty now: Rich Smith (Yale ’62) was not the class secretary, and he is not the author of the China essays.

There are many things that AI does brilliantly, but getting the facts straight isn’t always one of them.

 
We welcome your comments below.