Mignon Fogarty4d ago

I've never been opposed to the word "hallucinating" for describing how AI makes mistakes ... until now.

I just talked to someone who thought AI hallucinations would be obvious because it would be obvious if you talked to a *person* who was hallucinating.

In other words, they equated "hallucination" with "sounds wacko" and accepted AI output as true because it sounded level headed.

1/2

Show threadMignon Fogarty4d ago

The word "hallucination" isn't going away — it's a widely used industry term — but we need to explain it better for beginners:

"Hallucination" is just a fancy word for "confidently makes mistakes":

"Remember: AI hallucinates, and you need to confirm all facts" should be something like "Remember: AI confidently makes mistakes, and you need to confirm all facts" or "AI tells you things that are wrong in a way that sounds completely believable. Confirm all facts!"

Show threadFeisty
@grammargirl But what actually is the point of using it if I have to confirm all facts? Can’t I just skip the middleman?
Jun 6 at 6:02pmWeb
Show threadMignon Fogarty4d ago
@feisty_lemming It depends on what you're using it for. If you're fact checking, it can be faster to put in a document and say something like "Fact check this piece. Show your sources," which gives you a list of links to click and check. It's faster than putting each thing you want to check into Google and then sorting through the links (and now the AI slop too). It will also surface relevant links you may have missed that don't show up in the first 10 or 20 on Google.
Show threadMignon Fogarty4d ago

@feisty_lemming You can also specify the sources you want it to use with something like "These are the 20 sites I usually use. Check there first and add anything else that seems relevant."

But I'm sure there are lots of other use cases where it's more in the way than helpful.

Show threadeestileib (she/hers)4d ago

@grammargirl @feisty_lemming

I've done that and it generates ballpark-but-not-accurate information with fake citations.

Show threadFeisty4d ago
@eestileib Fake citations (and fake quotations) are a huge problem. And sometimes it’s not even that the citation is fully fake, but a real source has been transmogrified so the details are wrong—authors are in the wrong order, title is modified, etc. @grammargirl
Show threadMignon Fogarty4d ago

@eestileib @feisty_lemming I check everything and haven't had that problem. I find errors in maybe 1 in 50 links--like the page doesn't say what the model says it does--it's so rare that's just a total guess at the rate.

I'm not asking it to find new information -- just to check existing info. Not sure if that would be the difference. I also don't use the free models. They are dramatically worse.

Show threadeestileib (she/hers)4d ago

@grammargirl @feisty_lemming

I haven't used any of the commercial ones for obvious reasons, I was farting around with Mistral on my home computer and lost interest pretty fast.

It made me get up and actually pull a book off the shelf to verify that the quotation it gave me was fake, cause it read like an grad student summarizing Shapin, not Shapin.

If I'm looking for poetic truth I can get it from a novel is my opinion.

I used to be/coordinate engineers and nothing made me lose trust in someone faster than being confidently wrong. Even if they were usually right.

Show threadFeisty4d ago
@eestileib 💯 @grammargirl
Show threadFeisty4d ago
@grammargirl Maybe it would be faster. I object to the mass illegality of the content theft, the environmental destruction, and all the other terrible things that come with it. So I can’t bring myself to use it in order to possibly do stuff faster. And I’m fortunate that for work at least, so far I’m not being forced to. Many who object are not that lucky.
Show threadsabik3d ago
@feisty_lemming @grammargirl
Indeed, there is no point in using #GenAI if you have to confirm all the facts; you'll do better to just skip the middleman
Show threadPetra van Cronenburg3d ago
@feisty_lemming If your boss doesn't demand the use, you can live and work perfectly without LLMs and GPTs. A life without is possible. (And better for the environment and climate). @grammargirl