4 ms·

I disagree, I think 'Hallucination' is a risk-shedding weasel-word. It's meant to shift blame away from the technology and its creator (multibillion dollar AI c

I disagree, I think 'Hallucination' is a risk-shedding weasel-word. It's meant to shift blame away from the technology and its creator (multibillion dollar AI companies etc) in a way that doesn't hold those actors accountable or responsible for the outcomes. In any other software it would be an error, regression, bug. And in a human process it would be at ~least something someone would call 'bullshit'.

vorticalbox 14d ago
I’m not sure either would is particularly good at describing what is happening. Error in implies something broke, which nothing broke the LLM did exactly what they where designed to do generate text based on a statistically likely bases. Hallucination Does really fit here either. It implies it’s experiencing something that is not there which it isn’t experiencing anything.
- Towaway69 14d ago
  Howabout: lied. The LLM lied indirectly (perhaps) but it made a claim that was false. Which is a lie. Humans lie and LLMs “hallucinate”? What gives. It’s an untruth that the LLM is selling for a truth, that’s lying in my books. And since we don’t know how or why the LLM works, we can’t even judge whether it explicitly lied or only because it didn’t know better.
  - vorticalbox 13d ago
    Lie implies it knows what it is saying to be false.
- t-3 14d ago
  Unexpected Result is perhaps a more accurate description.
segsegsgsg 14d ago
error, regression, bug, bullshit are not weasel words, hallucination is a weasel word because why exactly? your argument is a weasel argument.
- usernomdeguerre 14d ago
  I explained why, if you want me to engage i'll try but you're asking me to restate my position.
  - s1artibartfast 14d ago
    You made a lot of clams about how it intentionally shifts blame, but none of them are supported. Do you really think accountability would be meaningfully different had they been called bugs? Why are you so confident it is intentional? My understanding of the history is that it was a technical term among researchers long before it had any public mind share. It's popular because it's and intuitive for most people, not because there was a concerted effort hooked up by some PR and legal team.
  - e5yyey 13d ago
    I disagree, I think 'Bug' is a risk-shedding weasel-word. It's meant to shift blame away from the technology and its creator (multibillion dollar AI companies etc) in a way that doesn't hold those actors accountable or responsible for the outcomes. In any other software it would be an error, regression, hallucination. And in a human process it would be at ~least something someone would call 'bullshit'.
leonidasrup 14d ago
Using the term "Hallucination" makes it sound less problematic, less impactfull for user. They should have used the term "error". For example in statistics, there many kinds of errors, discretization error, prediction error, sampling error, ... https://www.statisticshowto.com/errors-in-statistics/ https://www.statisticshowto.com/errors-in-statistics/
- lukan 14d ago
  I don't know, but all humans make errors, but if some humans are known to hallucinate, you don't let them do important things unsupervised. So error sounds actually less problematic to me.
  - verdverm 14d ago
    We do a surprising amount of "hallucinations" without the extreme version of hallucinations. We assemble things we sort of remember into incorrect statements all the time. I'm sure every one of us has been corrected for misremembering something or stating something based on misremembered facts (plague of clickbait headlines). This is more or less how I see the LLM output, but as a path finding exercise over next-token probability graphs. This is (i.e.) why they are trained to use phrases like "wait but" or "actually", these words even out the probability of different paths, giving them their ability to "consider" different solutions.
  - leonidasrup 14d ago
    Because so few humans hallucinate, many imagine hallucinations like dreams and dreams are mostly harmless.
plant-ian 14d ago
Totally weasel words in this time frame. I think in 10 years after everyone has a better understanding of what we are dealing with these weasel words would maybe make sense. Right now it seems more sensible to deem this at best a false positive, or glitch, or if it must be anthropomorphized a screw up or a f' up. I don't think the llms are dehydrated. Although that's funny on another level. Edited: to be less abrasive
margalabargala 14d ago
> In any other software it would be an error, regression, bug. How is "bug", literally an organism with a will of its own that you cannot control, any less of a weasel word?
- usernomdeguerre 14d ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_(engineering)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_(engineering)#History But on reflection I don't disagree it was probably made for similar effect in the era of human software development. That sounds like it strengthens my point?
  - margalabargala 14d ago
    On the contrary I think it weakens your point. People don't consider "bug" a weasel word, to the point that you yourself held it up as an example of not being a weasel word, despite it being a willful, uncontrollable organism. I see no reason why "hallucination" won't become a similar piece of neutral jargon. It already is for many people, even if you're not (yet?) among them.
    - usernomdeguerre 14d ago
      It becomes a neutral term because we are practicioners (presumably?) who benefit from it and have thus let it become habitual. I already admitted it was weasely upon reflection. If you want this class of LLM error to also become habitual and neutral then fine, I don't, and I think many others don't.
- elzbardico 12d ago
  You need to consult the etymology of the word bug in the context of computing. In the pre-historical times of vacuum-tube computers, with exposed conductors with potentials sometimes over 200v, a coachroach in the wrong place can definitely flip a few bits in the most benign scenario.
  - 12d ago

vorticalbox 14d ago

I’m not sure either would is particularly good at describing what is happening. Error in implies something broke, which nothing broke the LLM did exactly what they where designed to do generate text based on a statistically likely bases. Hallucination Does really fit here either. It implies it’s experiencing something that is not there which it isn’t experiencing anything.

Towaway69 14d ago
Howabout: lied. The LLM lied indirectly (perhaps) but it made a claim that was false. Which is a lie. Humans lie and LLMs “hallucinate”? What gives. It’s an untruth that the LLM is selling for a truth, that’s lying in my books. And since we don’t know how or why the LLM works, we can’t even judge whether it explicitly lied or only because it didn’t know better.
- vorticalbox 13d ago
  Lie implies it knows what it is saying to be false.
t-3 14d ago
Unexpected Result is perhaps a more accurate description.

segsegsgsg 14d ago

error, regression, bug, bullshit are not weasel words, hallucination is a weasel word because why exactly? your argument is a weasel argument.

usernomdeguerre 14d ago
I explained why, if you want me to engage i'll try but you're asking me to restate my position.
- s1artibartfast 14d ago
  You made a lot of clams about how it intentionally shifts blame, but none of them are supported. Do you really think accountability would be meaningfully different had they been called bugs? Why are you so confident it is intentional? My understanding of the history is that it was a technical term among researchers long before it had any public mind share. It's popular because it's and intuitive for most people, not because there was a concerted effort hooked up by some PR and legal team.
- e5yyey 13d ago
  I disagree, I think 'Bug' is a risk-shedding weasel-word. It's meant to shift blame away from the technology and its creator (multibillion dollar AI companies etc) in a way that doesn't hold those actors accountable or responsible for the outcomes. In any other software it would be an error, regression, hallucination. And in a human process it would be at ~least something someone would call 'bullshit'.

leonidasrup 14d ago

Using the term "Hallucination" makes it sound less problematic, less impactfull for user. They should have used the term "error". For example in statistics, there many kinds of errors, discretization error, prediction error, sampling error, ... https://www.statisticshowto.com/errors-in-statistics/ https://www.statisticshowto.com/errors-in-statistics/

lukan 14d ago
I don't know, but all humans make errors, but if some humans are known to hallucinate, you don't let them do important things unsupervised. So error sounds actually less problematic to me.
- verdverm 14d ago
  We do a surprising amount of "hallucinations" without the extreme version of hallucinations. We assemble things we sort of remember into incorrect statements all the time. I'm sure every one of us has been corrected for misremembering something or stating something based on misremembered facts (plague of clickbait headlines). This is more or less how I see the LLM output, but as a path finding exercise over next-token probability graphs. This is (i.e.) why they are trained to use phrases like "wait but" or "actually", these words even out the probability of different paths, giving them their ability to "consider" different solutions.
- leonidasrup 14d ago
  Because so few humans hallucinate, many imagine hallucinations like dreams and dreams are mostly harmless.

plant-ian 14d ago

Totally weasel words in this time frame. I think in 10 years after everyone has a better understanding of what we are dealing with these weasel words would maybe make sense. Right now it seems more sensible to deem this at best a false positive, or glitch, or if it must be anthropomorphized a screw up or a f' up. I don't think the llms are dehydrated. Although that's funny on another level. Edited: to be less abrasive

margalabargala 14d ago

> In any other software it would be an error, regression, bug. How is "bug", literally an organism with a will of its own that you cannot control, any less of a weasel word?

usernomdeguerre 14d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_(engineering)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_(engineering)#History But on reflection I don't disagree it was probably made for similar effect in the era of human software development. That sounds like it strengthens my point?
- margalabargala 14d ago
  On the contrary I think it weakens your point. People don't consider "bug" a weasel word, to the point that you yourself held it up as an example of not being a weasel word, despite it being a willful, uncontrollable organism. I see no reason why "hallucination" won't become a similar piece of neutral jargon. It already is for many people, even if you're not (yet?) among them.
  - usernomdeguerre 14d ago
    It becomes a neutral term because we are practicioners (presumably?) who benefit from it and have thus let it become habitual. I already admitted it was weasely upon reflection. If you want this class of LLM error to also become habitual and neutral then fine, I don't, and I think many others don't.
elzbardico 12d ago
You need to consult the etymology of the word bug in the context of computing. In the pre-historical times of vacuum-tube computers, with exposed conductors with potentials sometimes over 200v, a coachroach in the wrong place can definitely flip a few bits in the most benign scenario.
- 12d ago