[hoosieree]

LLMs can't hallucinate. They generate the next most likely token in a sequence. Whether that sequence matches any kind of objective truth is orthogonal to how models work.

I suppose depending on your point of view, LLMs either can't hallucinate, or that's all they can do.

[ToValueFunfetti]

>Whether that sequence matches any kind of objective truth is orthogonal to how models work.

Empirically, this cannot be true. If it were, it would be statistically shocking how often models coincidentally say true things. The training does not perfectly align the model with truth, but 'orthogonal' is off by a minimum of 45 degrees.

[viraptor]

It matches the training data. Whether the training data matches truth (and whether it's correctly understood - sarcasm included) is a completely separate thing.

> The training does not perfectly align the model with truth, but 'orthogonal'

Nitpicky, but the more dimensions you have, the easier it is for almost everything to be orthogonal. (https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2022/12/26/surpries-at-hi-dime...) That's why averaging embeddings works.

[CooCooCaCha]

Whenever someone takes issue with using the word “hallucinate” with LLMs I get the impression they’re trying to convince me that hallucination is good.

Why do you care so much about this particular issue? And why can’t hallucination be something we can aim to improve?