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Same with the recent linguistic discussion of whether AI is lying, hallucinating, or confabulating (personally, I think confabulation has the closest linguistic
by irrational 3y ago
Same with the recent linguistic discussion of whether AI is lying, hallucinating, or confabulating (personally, I think confabulation has the closest linguistic meaning to what AI does). All of these are really terms that apply to agents with agency and don’t apply to LLMs, but we don’t currently have terms for them, yet.
- mannykannot 3y agoOf these, lying is most clearly (definitely, I would say) a term that applies to entities with agency, but I don't see hallucinating being so. Confabulation seems to me to fall somewhere between: insofar as it is not simply a synonym for lying, that seems to lie in it being a pathology, and one which tends to compromise the subject's ability to act with agency (a person fully aware that their confabulation is false is, if they hope their listeners will believe them, lying, and has apparently chosen to do so.) Personally, I feel that the last two are useful analogies while the first is not, but they are all of limited applicability because I doubt an LLM's use of language follows from, or is indicative of, an understanding that there is an external world.
- burnished 3y agoOoh good word choice. Lying and hallucinate have felt inadequate, I agree with you that confabulation best captures what is going on. Plus I think its kind of archaic now, so it has less baggage to contend with/be translated between folk