CO Detectors, AVWEB and Stupid AI

Shame on you, AVWEB. A misleading article, a humorous and mal-created picture, a lack of expertise on the subject, and a basic grovel for link dollars on Amazon. Shame.

Today, in my email, I received the latest post from AVWEB. It contained an article about Carbon Monoxide detectors (of which my company, Radiant, is an industry leader)*.

"Great, if they are covering Carbon Monoxide detectors, they will have to mention our CO-USB detector," I thought to myself.

I glanced through the article; it covered five or so different detectors. It didn't mention any Radiant CO detectors, particularly our super hot selling CO-USB Carbon Monoxide Detector, of which we've shipped around 900 units with another 300 on our order books as I write this.

I gotta put a pic in of our unit:

Radiant's CO-USB $29.95 CO Detector, one of four different CO alarm models we sell for aviation use.

Now I have to copy the pic that AVWEB used first in their AI written CO alarm product roundup. This image is loaded with AI image generation flaws!

Fake CO detector in fake AI image. Try reading all of the labels on the device.

AI clearly used this base image of a real CO detector:

A real CO detector. From the same article.

For your amusement, compare how the AI image generator changed the labels as it attempted to drop the image into the picture with the happy pilot. He is clearly happy that he survived CO poisoning while acting as Captain of a jet aircraft, which has no reciprocating engines.

Of course, there isn't a single airline jet pilot on the planet who uses a portable CO detector as part of their onboard kit. Who came up with that photo idea? I'd rather see a pilot of Cessna (personal bias) with a piston engine up front, showing off his CO detector. Or maybe a Chipper, but that's another story from many years ago. (Google it and me.)

The AVWEB article continued to make a list of CO detectors, with some links to Amazon for purchase, along with some references to Sporty's. If I was Sporty's, I'd be embarrassed to be mentioned. Most of the CO detectors in the list were not developed for aviation.

Our CO products have been reviewed by in-flight testing (e.g.: AOPA) and covered in aviation specific media (General Aviation News; Cessna Owners Organization).

The article had this sub-head: "Why a CO detector Is a must-have in the cockpit."

But nowhere in the article did it ever explain why a CO detector is a must-have. It just went into features and specs. In our marketing, we like to refer to the Rosetta stone of aviation CO guidance: the FAA's published guidance. You can read it here:

CObroforweb    BTW, that link name means: "CO Brochure For Web - FAA".

Shame on you, AVWEB. A misleading article, a humorous and mal-created picture, a lack of expertise on the subject, and a basic grovel for link dollars on Amazon. Shame.

AVWEB's article link is here:

Choosing a Carbon Monoxide Detector for an Airplane - AVweb

-- James Wiebe, CEO of Radiant

* I don't have access to industry sales figures on CO detectors, but I'm figuring that Radiant has moved up the leader board significantly since we introduced our latest CO-USB earlier this year.

P.S, What the h*** happened to AVWEB?