I tried finding a FOSS app that I could use to use my phone as a mouse (all options for this seem really shady IMO) and Google’s “AI overview” recommended the app “Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse”. Seemingly, because it has a (mostly empty) Git repo with typical folders. I tried entering the search term into Copilot on my work computer and got the same result, Copilot also gave a little speech on why the app was FOSS. Only when told there was no source code in the repo did Copilot backtrack and say it wasn’t open source (and later having it listed as not recommended because of an unknown origin [eventhough it’s in the Google Play store…]).
As a user, i.e. not contributor, of FOSS I found this an interesting revelation. Is this an intentional catfishing strategy to get apps promoted by the LLMs – as a semi-illegitimate growth hack for a legitish app or for entirely illegitimate purposes? Or just a serendipitous LLM hallucination?
Hallucinations, but also not helped by the fact that people (knowingly or not) promote proprietary garbage in FOSS communities. I remember the “reddit answers” feature when I tried it out frequently suggested proprietary crap in “list of best FOSS” type topics.