AI Basics · Plain English
Hallucination
When an AI states something false with complete confidence — the failure mode every serious deployment must design around.
A hallucination is an AI answer that sounds authoritative and is wrong: a part number that does not exist, a policy that was never written, a torque spec pulled from thin air. It happens because language models generate plausible text — and plausible is not the same as true.
Hallucination is not a reason to avoid AI; it is a reason to deploy it with guardrails. Three work reliably: ground the AI in approved documents so it quotes rather than invents; require visible citations so every claim can be checked; and route anything consequential through human review. When no approved source exists, the honest behavior is to say so.
Where it shows up in this proposal: the assistant on this site refuses to answer without an approved source and escalates the question to a human — try it from the chat panel.