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Benjamin Lindquist, an assistant professor in MIT's History Department, has published a new paper in Past and Present tracing the early origins of AI hallucinations. The paper points out that in the mid-20th century, engineers deliberately injected randomness into algorithms in order to imitate human creativity; early researchers valued neural networks precisely because they occasionally gave answers that deviated from expectations. Lindquist also stated that today institutions such as OpenAI and Anthropic suppress this kind of "weirdness" for legal and commercial reasons, and that there is an unavoidable trade-off between creativity and predictability. At present, this research has been reported through an MIT News interview, and there have been no further developments.
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Lindquist publishes paper tracing the origins of AI hallucinations
Source:MIT News · Artificial Intelligence
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Oct 23
MIT News · Artificial Intelligence
MIT Interview: How AI Imitates the "Chaotic" Human Mind
In a new paper in Past and Present, Benjamin Lindquist, Assistant Professor in MIT's History Department, points out that mid-20th-century engineers deliberately injected randomness into algorithms in order to imitate human creativity, and that this was also an early source of AI hallucinations. He says early researchers valued neural networks precisely because they occasionally gave answers that deviated from expectations, whereas today OpenAI, Anthropic, and others suppress this "weirdness" for legal and commercial reasons, and that there is an unavoidable trade-off between creativity and predictability.