Why is ‘hallucinate’ word of the year in the UK?

Across the Channel, Cambridge Dictionaries has decided to name the verb “Word of the Year”, linked to artificial intelligence.

As every year, Cambridge Dictionary reveals its “Word of the Year” in the United Kingdom based on the number of searches on its website. So the company has revealed the “winner” of 2023. And this is the verb “hallucinate”. But it should not be understood entirely in its original meaning.

The sudden advent of Generative Artificial Intelligence like ChatGPT has shed light on this term. Hallucinating is creating false information for an AI model. In this sense, the software ultimately imagines answers that make no sense or contradict its own evidence.

“They are in danger of getting lost.”

Hallucinations are very common and a major criticism of Bart (an AI developed by Google) or ChatGPT, although they will decrease as the models improve.

“AIs are amazing at processing large amounts of data to extract specific information and synthesize it. But the more original you ask them, the more they can go astray,” he reminds. Sky News Wendell Nicholls, editor of the Cambridge Dictionary.

The main problem with these hallucinations is the certainty with which artificial intelligence can confirm them. Last spring, a US attorney used ChatGPT to help him with a case. The chatbot confidently pointed to case law that didn’t actually exist.