What Are Hallucinations?
AI Hallucination = When AI generates confident, plausible-sounding information that is completely false.
Common Types
| Type | Example | Danger Level | |:---|:---|:---| | Fake Facts | "Ethiopia's population is 150 million" (It's ~120M) | 🔴 High | | Fake Citations | Cites a book that doesn't exist | 🔴 High | | Fake People | Mentions a "famous Ethiopian scientist" who is made up | 🟡 Medium | | Fake Statistics | "90% of Ethiopians use AI daily" | 🟡 Medium |
Why Does This Happen?
AI doesn't "know" facts. It predicts what words SHOULD come next based on patterns in training data.
For common facts: "The capital of Ethiopia is..." → "Addis Ababa" (99.9% probability) ✅
For obscure facts: "The 2023 Ethiopian AI budget was..." → AI has no reliable data, so it hallucinates a plausible number.
Your Defense Toolkit
1. VERIFY everything important — especially medical, legal, financial advice
2. Ask AI to show its work — "Provide sources for your claims"
3. Use AI for ideas, not facts — Look up statistics in official sources
4. Check dates — AI training data has a cutoff date