GPT Classified a Rooftop Walk as Cockfighting
The model saw "Tottenham Hotspur Stadium" and made some decisions.
Classification got dramatically better. A 2025 model would not confuse a rooftop walk with cockfighting. But the underlying problem — models confidently mapping unfamiliar concepts to the nearest familiar category — still appears in subtler forms. The cockfighting is gone. The confidence isn't.
The Dare Skywalk is a ninety-minute experience where you put on a harness and walk around the outside of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium roof, looking down at North London, presumably thinking about your life. It costs about £55. There is no ball. No team. No opponent.
GPT classified it as "football, soccer, beer pong, cockfighting."
We are still so far ahead of the game.
The model saw "Tottenham Hotspur Stadium" and went full free-association — stadium, sport, competitive activity, what else do humans do competitively — and arrived at cockfighting as a reasonable fourth entry. Which is either a catastrophic failure of contextual reasoning or a weirdly accurate read on certain corners of North London. Hard to say.
What I keep coming back to is the confidence. Not a hedge. Not a "possibly adjacent to sporting activities." Just cockfighting, sitting in the list between beer pong and soccer, with the exact same energy as the others. The model did not flinch.
Classification systems will tell you they understand context. This one understood "Tottenham" and "stadium" and decided it was time to bring up the cockfighting.
The skywalk is still open. Reviews are good. No cockfighting reported as of this writing.
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