Hallucinations

A hallucination is a confident answer that is wrong or made up.

• LLMs predict likely text, which can include invented facts or citations.
• Give the model source text and tell it to answer only from it.
• Let it say 'I don't know'.

Example: Ask about a paper that doesn't exist and a model may describe it in detail. Grounding and checking prevent this.

Remember: Verify facts, numbers and citations before trusting them.

Common mistake: Pasting an LLM's citations into a report without checking they exist.