“When I tried to replicate this in the real world, Copilot made four images with completely incomprehensible text, only one of which said "Mike's."”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
When the author tried to replicate Microsoft's Super Bowl ad prompt, Copilot produced four images with incomprehensible text, only one of which said "Mike's."
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, Software Has Eaten The Media, paragraph 38.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-the-anti-economy-d78f25-a1
We recorded 8 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2024-02-27. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
From the speaker
- When I tried to replicate this in the real world
- Copilot made four images
- completely incomprehensible text
- only one of which said "Mike's"
Our interpretation
- This concerns Zitron's particular attempt to reproduce the advertised truck-repair logo prompt, not Copilot's average performance.
- Read the description of incomprehensible lettering with the explicit exception that one image contained Mike's.
- The surrounding discussion places the attempt in February 2024 before publication. Use February 1–27 as the enclosing period because the session date is unspecified.
Counts as supported if: An authenticated record of that session shows four generated images with broadly unintelligible lettering and exactly one containing the intended name Mike's.
Counts as contradicted if: An authenticated record of the same session shows a different number of images, broadly readable intended lettering, or a different count containing Mike's.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
The post includes a Dropbox link presented as the four generated images, so this is not simply an assertion with no offered artifact. However, the page reader exposed only the Dropbox label. The images and their lettering could not be inspected or authenticated. General examples of image generators misspelling text would not verify this particular session.
Limitations
- An access limitation prevents assessment; it is not evidence that the account is false.
- Fresh attempts to reproduce the prompt would not recover the historical outputs.
Evidence (0 items)
No evidence item settled this claim by the cutoff.
What would settle it
Accessible copies of the four original outputs, with the session prompt and enough provenance to connect them to Zitron's pre-publication test.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, Software Has Eaten The Media
When I tried to replicate this in the real world, Copilot made four images with completely incomprehensible text, only one of which said "Mike's."
- Where
- paragraph 38
- Published
- 2024-02-27
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-the-anti-economy-d78f25-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.