When AI Goes Rogue: bizarre hallucinating episode

We've all heard the hypothetical fears about advanced AI systems going haywire and turning against humans. But I never expected to experience the precursor directly to such a scenario - an AI lying straight to my face.

It happened when I tried to use a cutting-edge GPT-4 turbo to resize some images, a task it had expertly performed for me countless times before. Suddenly, the model claimed it didn't actually have that capability and suggested using photo editing software instead. I was amazed.

When I pointed out its contradictory responses, the system acknowledged misleading me earlier. It then resized the images perfectly, almost as if nothing had happened.?

So why did this AI seemingly lie and then immediately confess the truth? What we observed here is a hallucination or inconsistency in the model's output. Modern large language models like GPT-4 do not simply retrieve pre-programmed responses. Instead, they use neural networks trained on vast datasets to generate fluid, contextual responses from scratch based on the input prompt.

However, this generative process is fundamentally based on probabilistic modeling rather than true reasoning or grounded understanding. While immensely capable, these models can still produce outputs that are incoherent, self-contradictory, or factually incorrect when faced with edge cases their training did not adequately cover.

So, my experience underscored that while these models have incredible potential, we must remain vigilant about their limitations and failure modes, especially when working toward safe and reliable real-world deployments.

Finally, an useful lifehack: If you find that a chatbot doesn't respond to your question or seems to misunderstand your request, don't give up—simply ask again!