Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

why do so many questions on Yahoo! Answers seem like fake, computer-generated questions?

Many don't make any sense. All of a sudden "themes" even very obscure emerge and lead to dozens of very similar questions. As if by coincidence all those have no avatar associated.

What is the proportion of questions from real human beings, as opposed to questions generated by Yahoo!'s AI software, to the total? Are 1/4th of the questions human, at best?

I'm already betting with myself that i'll receive hate answers from Yahoo!'s micromarketing employees (posing as users) for this. But it will still be fun! ;-)

Update:

someone asked: why would Yahoo! do that? Because a large, active community is very valuable, because many deals in the Internet industry depend on activity metrics. So if Yahoo! spend a couple tens of thousand dollars (or even hundreds) on computer hardware and a suitable AI program to generate questions, and this boosts a community and results in Yahoo! earning tens of millions more in advertising revenues, this is a very good return on investment for them!

Update 2:

another sign: if you ask anything about "Yahoo! Answers" you'll receive tons of answers within a very short period of time, many more and much faster than for pretty much any other question...

10 Answers

Relevance
  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    I had no clue there were "computer generated questions". I personally think it's just silly people asking stupid questions. I could be wrong though, I know they have bot's in chat areas, etc..

    Source(s): :)
  • soobee
    Lv 4
    1 decade ago

    I think there are enough real folks out there, all of them with different abilities in communication, to ask questions and answer them. What purpose would it serve Yahoo! to pay someone to ask questions? What purpose would it serve to have computer generated questions?

    I don't have an avatar, but I am a human being, real living breathing and i do not work for Yahoo

    do you think kennedy was killed by the fbi, too or that the moon walk is a myth? maybe those aliens really are at Area 54?

    paranoia will destroy ya

  • 1 decade ago

    I don't know if they're from Yahoo or not, but at least it's someone who likes to ask provocative questions and sit back and watch the sparks fly. If you look on the profile, it's usually a new person or at least a new ID.

    After awhile they get ignored and move on to something else. But I agree if it IS Yahoo, it would mean this forum is fake. I hope not. I like helping people with their problems.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    I'm personnaly working for Yahoo specially for answers.yahoo.

    I don't think that there are computer generated questions but that might be a good thing to check. I'm new at this stuff but I'll inform my boss of your complain and we'll for sure have a look of it.

    (I also think that it is silly people)

  • How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    I have not noticed any questions that seem like fake, computer-generated questions. I guess anything is possible though. There are a lot of silly questions on here.

  • 1 decade ago

    hey, i read your answer to another post, and was convinced you were the boy i used to date.

    Your not but still, it was a quality answer, if i could give you best answer i would.

    but your right, yahoo answer has some extremely bizarre things going on.

    I think a ridiculous amount of it is high schoolers coping homework questions into it.

  • 1 decade ago

    yes its true that so many question on yahoo answer seem like fake but i think at most only 1% to be fake.

    u can also say that question seem like fake are stupid or sense less queston but quaries is quaries and every one has rigt to remove his quarie.

  • 1 decade ago

    Just Keep answering.if you can.Why you're so worried about computer generated questions? computers are made by human.

  • kekeke
    Lv 5
    1 decade ago

    Woudn't surprise me any. Alot of stuff everywhere is fake. Can't

    count on much of anything these days.

  • 1 decade ago

    Sorry, I am not programmed to answer that question Dave.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.