Buzzfeed AI says Providence Place is the second-largest carpeted mall. But is it true?

Sometimes, it takes an AI robot to point out the obvious.

Did you ever realize that the Providence Place mall has a lot of carpet? The stores within the mall don’t — they all have the tile or laminate or vinyl plank flooring that you'd expect to see in a place that endures a lot of foot traffic. The food court also has a practical tile.

But all the hallways in the mall? That’s all a gray carpet.

An article about why people should visit Providence written by “Buzzy,” Buzzfeed’s AI assistant, and with contributions from actual human being Brent Sievers, published with this notable headline to describe our fair city: “Providence, Rhode Island: Carpeted Malls And More (Not A Typo)”

Indeed.

The article makes the unattributed claim that Providence Place is the second-largest carpeted mall in the world, including a 2006 Wikipedia photo that is so old it’s not even the mall's current carpet.

Is Providence Place mall actually the second-largest carpeted mall in the world?

The mall has 240,000 square yards of carpeting, according stories from The Providence Journal's archives, which is substantial, but seems unlikely to make it the second-largest carpeted mall in the world.

A spokesperson for a company that owns the mall didn’t immediately claim the title.

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“We’ve looked into it, but unfortunately nobody working in our Providence Place office is able to confirm if this is true or not,” said Lindsay Kahn, the public relations director for Brookfield Properties said.

The Providence Journal also independently looked into the claim, including using ChatGPT to see if another AI platform would come to the same conclusion as Buzzy. ChatGPT did not believe Providence Place was the second-largest carpeted mall in the world. Though it also provided incorrect, out-of-date information when asked about other malls with carpet.

Research by the actual reporter found that it’s a hard claim to prove or disprove, as there is no global compilation of malls and the square footage of carpet they contain. But the Iran Mall, which is the largest in the world, has carpeted spaces, and in the United States, The Woodfield Mall outside of Chicago, which is larger than Providence Place, also has carpet.

For what it’s worth, when the mall was built, it was definitely not one of the largest malls with carpet. Three larger malls — Mall of America, Palisades Center Mall and Westfield Garden State Plaza — all had carpet and have since phased it out.

Why does the Providence Place Mall have carpet?

When Providence Place was under construction in 1999, the design team for the mall was sold on carpeting.

"A lot of malls are going this way," David Harrison, project director for Commonwealth Development Group, told The Journal in 1999. "It's customer comfort," he said, "perceived as better quality, and helps with acoustics."

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The carpet was less expensive than tile options, though Harrison said that’s not why they picked it.

The original carpet was chosen by Harrison, architect Friedrich St. Florian, his wife, artist Livia Campanella St. Florian, and three other Providence Place representatives. Their choice echoed the architecture of the building and the river, with large geometric shapes and a smaller red diamond pattern.

At the time, Friedrich St. Florian said he wanted it to have color because "if you have too much solids, if a kid drops an ice cream cone, you have a problem."

Since then, the carpet has been replaced with a tonal gray pattern, with a little bit of a geometric pattern to it.

How do they clean it?

Cleaning 240,000 square yards of carpet requires special equipment.

They have a vacuum that Kahn said is “comparable to riding a lawnmower up and down the floors.” The floors are cleaned every day between 6 and 10 a.m.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence Place Mall carpet garners attention of Buzzfeed AI