KOCHI: Hallucination is a phenomenon that has fascinated scientists as well as philosophers alike. The dictionary defines it as “to seem to see, hear, feel, or smell something that does not exist, usually because of a health condition or because you have taken a drug”.
The word has its roots in Latin alucinatus, which was derived from alucinari — “wander (in the mind), dream; talk unreasonably, ramble in thought”. The term alucinari is believed to have emerged from the Greek alyein — “wander in mind, be at a loss, be beside oneself (with grief, joy, perplexity), be distraught”.
The first time I seriously delved into this ‘wander in mind’ was when a good-old buddy, let’s call him Mr B, shared his experience of hallucinating (not drug-induced) a few years ago. For a brief period, he was convinced that a big flood would submerge Bengaluru, and that he would get trapped where he lived in.
A jolly fellow, Mr B was certain there would be a Titanic-like scene. The four floors of the building, he believed, were like decks of the ship. His only hope was a helicopter rescue.
Thank God, he came out of that wanderland!
Recently, the term hallucination again blipped on the radar while reading about an intriguing book by British neuroscientist Anil Seth, Being You. A New Science of Consciousness.
A professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex, Anil says the “experiences of being you, or of being me, emerge from the way the brain predicts and controls the internal state of the body.”
Reality, he contends, is “controlled hallucinations”.
“The entirety of perceptual experience is a neuronal fantasy that remains yoked to the world through a continuous making and remaking of perceptual best guesses, of controlled hallucinations,” he elaborates.
“You could even say that we’re all hallucinating all the time. It’s just that when we agree about our hallucinations, that’s what we call reality.”
Now, add AI hallucination to the trip. ‘Hallucination’ has been billed as Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2023.
Here is the new meaning the word has acquired: “When an artificial intelligence (= a computer system that has some of the qualities that the human brain has, such as the ability to produce language in a way that seems human) hallucinates, it produces false information.”
The dictionary’s lexicographers highlight that there has been an “explosion in the use of generative AI tools”. “In 2023,” they note, “it became clear that this newly available technology is far from perfect as it’s capable of producing false information – hallucinations – and presenting this information as fact.”
This hallucination by AI can also be called confabulation. The conventional meanings of the word are: “conversation or discussion about something”; “a problem that makes someone produce false memories about events, or the false memories themselves”
In the AI context, it can now mean “producing false information”.
“The fact that AIs can ‘hallucinate’ reminds us that humans still need to bring their critical thinking skills to the use of these tools,” says Wendalyn Nichols of Cambridge Dictionary.
“AIs are fantastic at churning through huge amounts of data to extract specific information and consolidate it. But the more original you ask them to be, the likelier they are to go astray.”
An AI ethicist at the University of Cambridge, Henry Shevlin, believes the “widespread use of the term ‘hallucinate’ to refer to mistakes by systems like ChatGPT” hints that “our psychological vocabulary will be further extended to encompass the strange abilities of the new intelligences we’re creating”.
He says it is a “fascinating snapshot of how we’re thinking about and anthropomorphising AI”.
Anthropomorphism is to “show or treat an animal, god, or object as if it is human in appearance, character, or behaviour”.
Well, with that food for thought, it’s time for me to go wallow in some neuronal fantasy. Have a fantastic weekend ahead!
Here are some other words that captured the ‘2023 zeitgeist’, according to the Cambridge Dictionary:
Implosion: “the act of falling towards the inside with force”; “a situation in which something fails suddenly and completely”
Ennui: “a feeling of being bored and mentally tired caused by having nothing interesting or exciting to do”
Grifter: “someone who gets money dishonestly by tricking people”
GOAT: “abbreviation for Greatest Of All Time: used to refer to or describe the person who has performed better than anyone else ever, especially in a sport”
New words, new meanings
Prompt engineering: “in artificial intelligence, the process of designing prompts that will give the best possible results”
Large language model: “a complex mathematical representation of language that is based on very large amounts of data and allows computers to produce language that seems similar to what a human might say”
GenAI: “abbreviation for generative AI: the use or study of artificial intelligences that are able to produce text, images, etc.”
Train: “in machine learning, to create or improve a computer representation of a system or process by supplying it with data”
Black box: “A system that produces results without the user being able to see or understand how it works”
Shadowban: “an act of a social media company limiting who can see someone’s posts, usually without the person who has published them knowing”
Vibe check: “an act of finding out how someone is feeling or how they make you feel, or what the mood in a particular place or situation is”
Water neutral: “(of a building development, business, etc.) not using more water than was used in an area before it was built or established, or not removing more water than it replaces”
Pick up what someone is putting down: “to understand what someone means by their words, music, etc.”
Range anxiety: “the fear that an electric vehicle will not have enough battery charge to take you where you want to go to”
UBI: “abbreviation for universal basic income: an amount of money that is given regularly to everyone or to every adult in a society by a government or other organisation and that is the same for everyone”
PS: This article was written by a human, not AI.