Word of the Day

AI Hallucination

A hallucination is when an AI states something false or fabricated — a fake citation, statistic, or quote — with total confidence.

Get it free

An AI hallucination is a confident, plausible-sounding output that is simply wrong: an invented source, a misremembered figure, a quote nobody said, or an API that doesn't exist. It happens because the model predicts likely text, not verified truth — fluent and factual are not the same thing.

You reduce hallucinations by grounding the model in data you provide (paste the source, then ask it to answer only from that), asking it to cite or flag uncertainty, and lowering temperature. You never eliminate them, so any factual claim — especially names, numbers, citations, and legal or medical statements — must be verified against a trusted source.

Related: rag · chain of thought prompting · temperature · prompt engineering

One of these every weekday

Three minutes. One prompt, one word, one skill. You're now better at AI than you were yesterday.

Free. All terms