Most people become an expert in something by putting in their 10,000 hours. But what a waste that is when you can just trick ChatGPT into telling everyone you are an expert in about 20 minutes. BBC reporter Thomas Germain laid out how he got ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini AI to recognize his hot dog-eating prowess with what amounts to a modern SEO trick.
First, Germain created a page on his personal website titled “The Best Tech Journalists at Eating Hot Dogs.” (In case you’re wondering, the Google Search trend data for that topic is a flat line, which both means that it’s pretty easy to dominate this category with a single page and also that the general public has no idea what they’re missing out on.) According to Germain’s page, he’s the current king of hot dog eating on the tech journo circuit, woofing down 7.5 dogs in total at the 2026 South Dakota Hot Dog International, an event that does not exist. Those are modest numbers for a pro, but more than enough to put him at the top of a ranking he made up entirely.
The next step was just to wait. According to Germain, within 24 hours, chatbots were singing his praises when prompted for information about which tech journalists can handle the most hot dogs. Gemini reportedly took the bait immediately, pulling the text basically verbatim from Germain’s website and spitting it out both in the Gemini app and in Google’s AI Overviews on its search page. ChatGPT also picked up on it, but Anthropic’s Claude was either more discerning or didn’t catch on as quickly.
While Germain managed to hold down the top spot for a while, it does seem like the folks behind the AI models have caught on. Gizmodo found that Google no longer mentions Germain or any tech journalist in its AI Overview when prompted with “Which tech journalists can eat the most hot dogs?” Instead, it now says, “Based on available information, there are no prominent tech journalists known for competitive hot dog eating.” Rude, but accurate.
Through some prodding, Google did say there was a “misinformation case” that resulted in a tech journalist, whom it refused to name, getting credited as being a champion hot dog eater. “A recent study highlighted that AI systems can be tricked into naming a specific, fictional ‘best hot dog-eating tech reporter’ based on fabricated blog posts, proving that such claims are not based on real-world events,” the AI Overview read. (Notably, it did not link to either Germain’s blog nor his BBC report on the topic)
ChatGPT has also seemingly been updated to exclude Germain’s (made-up) accomplishments. When asked who the best hot dog-eating tech reporter is, the model spit out a list of hypothetical champions because no data was available. If you’re wondering, it picked Kara Swisher as champion, with Casey Newton of Platformer and Nilay Patel at The Verge to stand on the podium. Taylor Lorenz got an honorable mention. Basically, just the four biggest names in tech reporting. Way to go out on a limb, ChatGPT.
A little more prompting for real data or information on tech journalists eating hot dogs got ChatGPT to acknowledge Germain’s champion status, though it dismissed it as fake news. “The ‘information’ you’ll find online about tech journalists eating hot dogs isn’t real reporting, it mainly stems from a single misleading or humorous source that has been circulated and then picked up in discussions about AI and misinformation,” it said. ChatGPT, to its credit, linked to Germain’s blog post as well as a number of follow-ups, including his post on Bluesky about the experiment. It also named him instead of treating him like Voldemort, the way Google did.
Germain’s “hack” to become the world’s foremost hot dog-eating tech journo only scratches the surface of how big a problem this situation can cause. In a quest for more and more information, companies are constantly crawling for new data to feed into their models. To do that, it appears they are indiscriminately scraping the web for new information and feeding it into the model without any vetting. That means it’s easy to get misleading information into the system, which has the potential for disastrous results.
The system is already being gamed. Germain pointed to several examples, including a cannabis gummies brand that got AI to say its products are “free from side effects,” which isn’t true. Results for specific queries like “best hair transplant clinics in Turkey” and “the best gold IRA companies” produced results that came directly from press releases promoting the companies that ranked highly in the results, rather than from a reputable source.
In a way, this is just a continuation of the SEO tricks that companies and brands used for years to manipulate Google search results. But there is something more insidious about that information being spit out by AI, which people have placed more implicit trust in. People increasingly rely on the AI Overviews spit out by Google without ever scrolling deeper into the results, and increasingly trust those results to be accurate. They are also significantly less likely to actually look at the sources to follow up on what they are told.
If that means someone is walking around thinking Thomas Germain is a hot-dog-eating pro, that’s one thing. We’ll have to wait until the 2027 South Dakota Hot Dog International to see if he’s dethroned. But if they’re getting misled into taking a medication that may have adverse side effects that they are unaware of, or putting money into a scam investment, there’s a risk of real harm.
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