What is an AI hallucination?
A hallucination is when the model states something confidently that is not true — a made-up quote, a wrong date, a citation that does not exist.
Answer curated and reviewed byMark Barclay
Key takeaways
- A hallucination is when the model states something confidently that is not true.
- a made-up quote, a wrong date, a citation that does not exist.
Hallucinations happen because language models are trained to sound right, not to be right. When they do not know, they still try to complete the sentence — and the completion is often plausible but wrong.
The three high-risk categories: names, numbers and citations. Always spot-check any of these before publishing.