LLMs don't 'hallucinate'

LLMs often produce incorrect outputs, sometimes called 'hallucinations'. While solutions to reduce these errors exist, such as improving training data and fine-tuning models, the term 'hallucination' is misleading. These outputs are not abnormal for LLMs, which are designed to generate linguistically plausible text rather than factual or faithful text. Instead, describing their behavior as 'bulls**t'—speaking with disregard for the truth—offers a more accurate understanding. Recognizing this helps identify appropriate applications for LLMs, where their creative outputs are beneficial and where accuracy is critical.