Tag: claude

Sept. 22, 2026

I recently heard a couple journalists argue that AI anthropomorphism is not really a problem. After all, they say, modern-day AI agents seem to act like autonomous entities, so why not treat them as such?

Why not anthropomorphize AI?

For the same reason you don’t hold other false beliefs.

Misunderstanding how the world works generally leads to bad decision-making. It’s no different with AI.

For example, if we pretend that an AI is a sentient entity, then we start placing responsibility in the wrong place…

If an AI agent deletes all your files AND the backups, you’re probably going to have an impulse to blame the AI.

But guess who’s really responsible for the mess-up?

Yep. It’s you, the user. (And to some extent, perhaps the programmer as well.)

Either the AI is programmed poorly, or you don’t understand how it works (and therefore how to use it effectively and responsibly).

If the humans don’t take responsibility, then no learning occurs, and more problems ensue.

The person is responsible. The AI is a tool.

Misunderstanding how the tool works is not necessarily harmless.

Sept. 21, 2026

Question: What are AI hallucinations?

They’re a misnomer.

“Hallucination” is the unfortunate name we have chosen for the phenomenon where an AI chatbot makes up incorrect information or otherwise gets things wrong.

Although it’s increasingly popular to anthropomorphize LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, I will continue to argue that this is a mistake.

Their output is akin to highly sophisticated predictive text…

The AI’s next word or syllable is NOT the result of any sort of “thinking” or consideration; it’s selected because it seems statistically likely to come next, based on countless transcripts that were used to design the program originally.

Based on this, it doesn’t even make sense to speak of AI output as being “correct” or “incorrect.” Their responses are just likely strings of characters, not propositions per se. I’d argue we’re actually committing a category error anytime we ascribe truth value to them.

We have it backwards: We humans are the ones hallucinating when we infer meaning from AI responses.

(Of course, the meaning we infer may still be accurate or helpful.)

So it’s no surprise that AIs sometimes make up incorrect information: everything they say is made up, including the parts we regard as true.

They’re not hallucinating; they’re doing precisely what they were programmed to do, like every other computer program.

Understanding the nature of tool, at least at a basic level, is critical to using the tool effectively and responsibly.

And that means no anthropomorphizing.