The author also argues that these inaccuracies in AI outputs are currently providing a buffer for humans, as they necessitate human involvement in fact-checking and correcting the AI's work. This is particularly relevant in fields that demand accuracy, such as the legal profession. The author warns of the potential job losses and shifts in societal roles if AI becomes completely accurate and reliable.
Key takeaways:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots and agents often produce "hallucinations" or made-up facts in their outputs, a problem that AI companies are working to minimize and eliminate.
- AI startup Vectara has studied these hallucinations and found that they occur because AI models create a compressed representation of all the training data, losing fine details and making things up when it comes to specifics.
- While these hallucinations can be problematic, they can also spur creativity and provide an instructive view of plausible alternate realities. Some believe that even if we can eliminate these hallucinations, we should keep them for brainstorming purposes.
- The presence of hallucinations in AI outputs also provides a safeguard against total reliance on AI, as humans still need to fact-check the outputs. This is seen as a temporary firewall against massive unemployment as AI continues to advance.