Last week, something called DailyWise published a glowing tribute to one of my favorite drive-ins, the Fort Union Drive In Movie Theatre in Las Vegas NM. (Here’s the Internet Archive permalink version of that story, minus the photos, all from Google Maps.)

As I read the lengthy article, I started to notice that it was getting fuzzy, and not in good ways. It described the available snacks as “all the classics you crave, from buttery popcorn and candy to hot dogs and sodas” without mentioning its signature pizza. The admission price “is typically charged per car or per person” which didn’t really say anything. And I was sure something was wrong when the article described “the rows of speaker posts” for patrons. As you can see in my photo from 2023 (above) or a Google Street View from 2014, the Fort Union’s speaker poles haven’t been available for a very long time.

I asked Google about that publisher, and its AI told me, “Dailywise is an AI-powered app designed to improve personal productivity, health, and skill-building through habit tracking and coaching.” (Yes, I can see the irony here.) The Dailywise home page looks like AI-generated click bait.

So the result was a fake article about a very real place to visit. I highly recommend the Fort Union, which was also nice enough to let me use it on the cover of Drive-Ins of New Mexico. But I think I’ll skip future articles from Dailywise. I don’t think I can trust them.