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 threadTravis F W
@grammargirl a lot of people used to say "no it's not *hallucination* it's *confabulation*." Confabulation is the thing the human brain does that is somewhat analogous to what AI does: confidently believing in something that we just made up and sounds right but is entirely fiction. Confabulation is how many people explain their own behavior when questioned, but also how many people get through interviews, or make business deals, or mansplain …
Jun 7 at 1:14amWeb