AI Hallucinations: A Misnomer Worth Clarifying

TL;DR

This paper systematically reviews the varied definitions of 'AI hallucination' in literature, highlighting inconsistencies and advocating for a unified terminology to improve clarity across AI applications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of existing definitions of AI hallucination and proposes the need for standardization in terminology.

Findings

Identified inconsistent use of 'AI hallucination' across studies

Mapped alternative terms used in literature

Highlighted the importance of standardized definitions for AI safety

Abstract

As large language models continue to advance in Artificial Intelligence (AI), text generation systems have been shown to suffer from a problematic phenomenon termed often as "hallucination." However, with AI's increasing presence across various domains including medicine, concerns have arisen regarding the use of the term itself. In this study, we conducted a systematic review to identify papers defining "AI hallucination" across fourteen databases. We present and analyze definitions obtained across all databases, categorize them based on their applications, and extract key points within each category. Our results highlight a lack of consistency in how the term is used, but also help identify several alternative terms in the literature. We discuss implications of these and call for a more unified effort to bring consistency to an important contemporary AI issue that can affect multiple domains significantly.