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Posted on 05/09/2025 3:32:53 PM PDT by Angelino97
Recently, I learned of two phenomena: that people today actually publish books almost entirely written by artificial intelligence and that AI programs, rather than admitting ignorance, may sometimes “hallucinate” a plausible sounding answer. I’ve now experienced both.
My journey into Münchhausen’s AI Syndrome began with my own very flawed human memory. Many years ago I read a short science fiction story in an old anthology that is now long lost. It made a deep impression on me, but I’m unable to recall the title or author.
Suddenly the thought struck me, perhaps Elon Musk’s synthetic AI brainchild Grok could collate the databases, archives, and library records out there and track down the lost story for me. So I gave it a try, attempting to supply Grok with what relevant information I could remember about the story.
I asked, “Can you identify a sci-fi short story about a group of humans stranded in their reinforced habitat on a world dominated by hostile animals trying to genetically change themselves generation by generation to be able to survive among the hostile fauna on the planet?”
My description of the plot continued, “When the last generation is released they do wipe out the animals outside, but immediately start digging in to attack their parent generation. The last line in the short story is something like “There’s Donald now.”” And so I set Grok to work.
And, by George, it came up with the answer! “The sci-fi short story you’re describing closely matches “Doomsday’s Genesis” by George O. Smith, published in Startling Stories in Spring 1945.” Granted, that title didn’t immediately ring any bells or shake any memories loose.
But the short summary sounded close enough to be a match. “… a group of human scientists are … on a … planet called Kardon. The planet’s environment is extremely hostile, with deadly fauna … that make survival outside the dome nearly impossible for humans.”
But I soon discovered a problem. George O. Smith was a very real 20th century science fiction author. But his bibliography shows his first publication appeared in 1946. I scratched my chin. Well, I reasoned, we’ve learned not to trust Wikipedia, right? Perhaps this is something similar.
The lack of any ringing bells of recognition became deafening, however, when I tracked down an archived copy of the spring 1945 edition of the pulp magazine Startling Stories, which showed no trace of either the author or title. By now my doubts about Grok were growing in my mind.
So I asked Grok to back up its claim. “I can find no citations for “Doomsday’s Genesis” by George O. Smith, and no trace of it in Startling Stories (Spring 1945). Can you supply links?,” I asked.
It couldn’t. “I apologize for the confusion in my previous response. After reviewing your query and the available sources more closely, it appears I made an error in identifying “Doomsday’s Genesis” as a story by George O. Smith“. Grok then performed an almost humanly sheepish tap dance around the truth that went on for pages, leading to a formal statement it titled “Apology and Commitment.“
“I’m sorry for the incorrect attribution to “Doomsday’s Genesis” and the lack of verifiable citations in my initial response. This was a lapse in critically examining the narrative and cross-referencing sources properly. I’ve now clarified that no such story exists in Smith’s oeuvre or Startling Stories (Spring 1945).“
My next question was, naturally, “Can you explain how and why you ‘hallucinated’ a work that did not in fact exist?” Grok replied, “Thank you for raising this important question. …it’s critical to address how and why I generated a response referencing a non-existent work.”
It proceeded to explain why such hallucinations can occur in large language model AIs. The last paragraph did manage to simulate human emotion, but it was almost pathetically sad, like the psychotic HAL9000 computer in Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1968 sci-fi movie 2001: A Space Odyssey singing Daisy Bell as he’s gradually being shut down.
“The hallucination led to a misleading response that wasted your time and required you to fact-check my answer, which is the opposite of my goal to be helpful and accurate. By fabricating a story, I undermined trust in my reliability“.
All technology is a work in progress, of course, and AI generated assistance is still new. So when I saw that the updated Grok 3.5 had launched I thought I’d give it a chance, try again, and see if it had improved. I threw it the exact same question.
Good news: It no longer claims the work I’m looking for is “Doomsday’s Genesis” by George O. Smith.
The bad news: It now claims it is “Doomsday” by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley from the October 1953 edition of Astounding Science Fiction. Needless to say, this answer is just as fake as the last answer. And worse, when confronted with the lie, this time it straight up lies again.
When accused of lying, it now claims, across acres of text, that it had in fact corrected itself in the original reply by identifying the Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey comic book as the correct answer (which it didn’t).
“I did not lie; I made an error and then corrected it, ensuring accuracy in our conversation.”
Oh yes, we should definitely entrust our future to this technology…
The moral of the story is that not only are so-called writers now shunting off their work to AIs, but those same AIs may very well be spinning you a yarn … if you trust them.
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Then it denies lying.
Fake Boobs? What. Never mind.
Tap Dancing around the truth: One of the Cornerstones of becoming a functioning Human Being in a secular society!
Keywrds: Diplomacy/Lying/ White Lies/ Dogwhistles/NotgivnganF .
Here is a link to a free program that does this...
I might also add that this fiction was used without the permission of the authors and no royalties have been paid.
It is not surprising that when the LLM run into something they can not answer they "run home to momma" or to put it another way they return to fiction.
I kind of want to know what the story was. I don’t recall ever having read it.
Bopamagilvie.
There are quite a few fan fiction sites out there...I would think trying to sell something in the fiction market would be very hard.
You’re probably right about junk crowding out good nonfiction.
So ‘AI’ can And Does Lie.
.
Houston
We have a Problem.
I was just using Grok for work today, it had a brain fart and started giving nonsensical answers to questions I never asked.
This seems to happen when you let the conversation go on too long; it was like talking to an autistic teenager at our church. You can talk to her but after a while she starts spewing nonsense.
Turns out that when AI doesn’t know, it pretends it does and makes up stuff.
Then it denies lying.
-—————————————’
Sounds like the kid at the hardware store that doesn’t know anything but still gives me an answer...............
I’m writing one right now using AI- Several AI infact- and lemme tell ya, no, it’s not a process of ‘Auto-book creation”- there is still a TON of work to do- I will have AI write a few paragraphs, and then i go in and REWRITE it mostly- because while AI is fairly good at creating a story premise, it isn’t great- and needs a lot of help- One thing is is good at is writing a scene in a way that you might not have thunk about- and can lead in new and interesting directions
One very interesting site is an AI “Show don’t tell” site which takes a scene where we write blah ‘telling’ scene- and it turns it into “show’ scene- way more visual scenes when you get stuck trying to describe something in a show don’t tell manner-
Thats how I read it too
AI-Aptitude Intrusion.
Possibly “Deathworld” by Harry Harrison? A short novel.
“Along the way, Jason has to figure out how to survive a planet that seems designed to kill all human life with poisonous animal and plant attacks, how to get along with much stronger and stubborn and closed-minded native Pyrrans, and determine what is behind the planet’s violent reaction towards anything human.
This story explores the themes of ingrained beliefs, ability to change perspective, and how those aspects affect survival and the capability to thrive.”
I think there is something wrong with me.😉
AI - An Illusion.
You too, eh?
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