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

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!"

@grammargirl
> The word "hallucination" ... it's a widely used industry term

It is a widely used industry lie that regurgirators do not lie but somehow are slightly mistaken.

While technically it is a "less expected but still possible words rehashing output" or "imperfect probability glitch" or like, the "lie" term has the accurate and precise definiens of what the output is factually. So that term should be used. I hope it soon will be obligatory for "the industry" to use in the EU.

:))