hallucination
noun/həˌluːsɪˈneɪʃən/
Etymology Derives from the verb hallucinate, from Latin hallucinatus. Compare French hallucination. The first known usage in the English language is from Sir Thomas Browne.
1
A sensory perception of something that does not exist, often arising from disorder of the nervous system, as in delirium tremens.
- Hallucinations are always evidence of cerebral derangement and are common phenomena of insanity.1871, William Alexander Hammond, A Treatise on the Diseases of the Nervous System:
- The authorities said that the spinach had caused “possible food-related toxic reactions” with those affected experiencing symptoms including delirium, hallucinations, blurred vision, rapid heartbeat and fever.2022 December 18, Yan Zhuang, “How Can Tainted Spinach Cause Hallucinations?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
2
The act of hallucinating; a wandering of the mind; an error, mistake or blunder.
- This must have been the hallucination of the transcriber.1712 September 8 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “THURSDAY, August 29, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 470; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume V, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:
3
A confident but incorrect response given by an artificial intelligence; a confabulation.
Artificial intelligence
- Chatbots even forget that they are a bot and experience "hallucinations", Meta's description for when a bot confidently says something that is not true.2022 August 8, Liam Tung, “Meta warns its new chatbot may forget that it's a bot”, in ZDNET:
- Hallucinations are about adhering to the truth; when A.I. systems get confused, they have a bad habit of making things up rather than admitting their difficulties.2022 December 16, Farhad Manjoo, “ChatGPT Has a Devastating Sense of Humor”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
3 more examples
- It may tell you that the official currency of Switzerland is the euro (it’s actually the Swiss franc) or that Mark Twain’s Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County could not only jump but talk. A.I. researchers call this generation of untruths “hallucination.”2023 January 10, Cade Metz, “A.I. Is Becoming More Conversational. But Will It Get More Honest?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- The hallucinations common to AI also came under fire in the suit for potentially damaging the value of the Times' reputation, and possibly damaging human health as a side effect. “A GPT model completely fabricated that “The New York Times published an article on January 10, 2020, titled ‘Study Finds Possible Link between Orange Juice and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma,’” the suit alleges. “The Times never published such an article.”2023 December 27, John Timmer, “NY Times sues Open AI, Microsoft over copyright infringement”, in Ars Technica:
- “It looks like this is either an A.I. hallucination or a misattributed quote,” Ms. [Meredith] Broussard said.2026 May 19, Benjamin Mullin, quoting Meredith Broussard, “Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- Derived terms
- auditory hallucination, hallucinational, hallucinationy, hallucinogen, negative hallucination, nonhallucination, parahallucination, pseudohallucination, release hallucination
- Related terms
- AI slop