Post #3154152
2026-06-06 16:46 UTC
Replies (21)
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@orionkidder@writing.exchange 2026-06-06 16:56
@grammargirl@zirk.us This is a good example of why that term is so dangerous. Thank you for posting it. That said, while I have zero hope of making that term go away, we also have the word "slop" as a counter. "Ugh. It had a hallucination..." "Yup. And the results are now slop." That said, I don't myself use "hallucination" in the "AI" context. I refer to the error rate, which last I checked, hovered around 40%.
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@gleick@mas.to 2026-06-06 17:16
@grammargirl@zirk.us I don’t think we need to accept it just yet. The word is deceptive—intentionally so. What needs to be explained is this: chatbots and LLMs can't "hallucinate” because they have no minds or senses. They routinely depart from factuality because that's how they’re programmed: to generate plausible streams of text without regard to reality. (https://around.com/dont-trust-them/)
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@hopeward@sunny.garden 2026-06-06 17:24
@grammargirl@zirk.us Hallucinations can only happen to a mind. An LLM has no more mind than a slot machine. The people making this stuff fell in love with their own convincing automatons, so attributed ‘hallucination’ as happening to their little babies. It’s a much different thing if you say ‘this brainless machine is constantly making errors and spitting incorrect data’. If you say that, it means back to the drawing board: this demo tech has failed.
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@merileedkarr@federated.press 2026-06-06 17:43
@grammargirl@zirk.us The industry named its own mistakes ‘hallucinations.’ Hallucinations is a forgiving term. ‘Delusions’ would be more accurate.
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@MikeStok@mstdn.ca 2026-06-06 18:00
@grammargirl@zirk.us these folks are stealing language to whitewash a con. In my opinion. Hallucination is a deviation from the normal way healthy human minds work. The confident incorrectness presented by the companies shilling AI is working as designed.
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@feisty_lemming@zeroes.ca 2026-06-06 18:02
@grammargirl@zirk.us But what actually is the point of using it if I have to confirm all facts? Can’t I just skip the middleman?
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@draNgNon@hachyderm.io 2026-06-06 18:03
@grammargirl@zirk.us like when medical people call someone "confused", AI "hallucination" is a more precise term than common parlance. it basically means the bot couldn't find a plausible answer and is for some reason blocked from saying "I don't know", so it makes stuff up. that's a bit different from "confidently makes mistakes" becuase it's "confidently making stuff up entirely". I have no idea what would be a good replacement for "hallucinate" in this context, I agree that it feels deceptive as is though.
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@maxleibman@beige.party 2026-06-06 18:18
@grammargirl@zirk.us I agree it’s not going away. I still find it constructive to point out it’s misleading, though, because it’s a good framing device for talking about what these technologies are and are not actually doing.
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@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca 2026-06-06 20:13
@grammargirl@zirk.us Would "delusional" be more apt?
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@ObbieZ@urbanists.social 2026-06-06 21:23
@grammargirl@zirk.us "AI tells you things that are wrong in a way that sounds completely believable." Ah, so AI is like Wally Cox on Hollywood Squares! (Use this analogy on old people. We'll understand.)
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@Downes@mastodon.social 2026-06-06 22:55
@grammargirl@zirk.us I think it's funny that people who object to the use of 'halluctinate' because it anthropomorphises AI are nonetheless happy with their use of the word 'confident', as in 'confidently makes mistakes', in the same context.
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@elfburgerman@mastodon.social 2026-06-07 00:05
@grammargirl@zirk.us I'm opposed to your use of 'AI'. An LLM is not an intelligence, even though that is what people call it. Every word the industry likes for its own products probably helps to mislead the public. Every form of anthropomorphisation of LLMs should be banned.
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@ohir@social.vivaldi.net 2026-06-07 00:35
@grammargirl@zirk.us > 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. :))
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@clickhere@mastodon.ie 2026-06-07 00:45
@grammargirl@zirk.us Definitely the latter, but with a slight addition: "AI tells you things that are wrong in a way that sounds completely believable - which is the system functioning as designed. Confirm all facts!"
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@DenOfEarth@mas.to 2026-06-07 00:51
@grammargirl@zirk.us I think of this as the nines imbalance. In a datacenter there is talk of nines of uptime. Going from two nines (99%) uptime to three nines (99.9%) requires an order of magnitude investment. Another again for four nines (99.99%). The AI nines imbalance is that It is one nine accurate (90%) but four nines eloquent (99.99%)
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@arh1@toot.cafe 2026-06-07 00:53
@grammargirl@zirk.us I appreciate "bullshit" as a better term per this article: https://www.psypost.org/scholars-ai-isnt-hallucinating-its-bullshitting/
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@ditol@freiburg.social 2026-06-07 01:04
@grammargirl@zirk.us Everything LLM based "AI" generates is hallucination. It's just that in more than 50% of cases those hallucinations resemble facts.
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@Mikal@sfba.social 2026-06-07 01:05
@grammargirl@zirk.us I'd like to suggest that the core of the problem here is that the pace of technological development is outstripping the pace of the evolution of our language to adequately describe it. I think we will have to come up with new words, or at least appropriate some more obscure ones to the cause with updated definitions. (All that said, I think "botfarts" or, in less polite company, "botshit" kind of works, no?)
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@travisfw@fosstodon.org 2026-06-07 01:14
@grammargirl@zirk.us 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 …
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@pumiquxt@sfba.social 2026-06-07 03:54
@grammargirl@zirk.us @photovotary@beige.party none of the people using this word have ever experienced an hallucination
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@theogrin@chaosfem.tw 2026-06-07 04:16
@grammargirl@zirk.us I have always liked Harry Frankfurt's definition of 'bullshit' as the boasting of a statement, one utterly without regard for its truth or falsity, but delivered with outright certainty. So 'hallucination' might be the industry-standard lie, but I've simply come to call these machines 'bullshit engines'. Whether they are right doesn't matter, but they sure do sound like they know...