AI basics for your business
Why AI is sometimes confidently wrong
Why AI sometimes makes things up, where it happens most and five habits that reduce the risk.
5 min read
Everyone who uses AI has seen it: an answer that looks perfect but isn't true. A regulation that doesn't exist, a figure from nowhere, a source you can't find. This is known as a "hallucination". It isn't a bug you can switch off; it follows from how these systems work.
Why it happens
A language model predicts which text logically follows your question. It aims for an answer that fits, not one that's proven. When it doesn't know something, it sometimes fills the gap with something believable. And it rarely volunteers that it's unsure.
Where it goes wrong most often
- Sources and quotations: titles, authors and links that look real but don't exist.
- Figures and dates: percentages, amounts, deadlines and thresholds.
- Rules and regulations: especially in Belgium, where federal, regional and European rules overlap.
- Names and details: job titles, addresses, product specifications.
- Calculations: particularly longer sums or percentages buried in a text.
- Recent events: anything after the model's training date, unless the tool searches the web.
Five habits that help
- Ask for sources and open them. Have the tool search the web and click the links yourself. A source you can't open doesn't count.
- Provide your own material. Supply a document, price list or procedure and ask it to answer only from that. Invented details drop sharply.
- Ask it to flag doubt. Add: "Tell me if you're unsure or if information is missing." It makes a noticeable difference.
- Have calculations double-checked. Ask for the working step by step, or do it in a spreadsheet.
- Get a second pair of eyes. For important texts, ask a colleague to read it, or ask the AI in a fresh conversation to look for errors.
Who is responsible?
You are. Whatever you send, publish or promise a customer is your responsibility, even if AI wrote it. So checking is part of any task involving facts, money, commitments or rules. For creative writing or an early brainstorm, you can be more relaxed.
Test yourself
Which instruction most reduces the risk of invented information?
Prompt to copy
Read the text below as a critical colleague. Highlight every statement containing a fact, figure, date, name or rule. For each one, say whether you're certain, whether I should check it and where best to do so. Don't change the text.
[paste the text]
