--- title: "Even the Most Advanced AI Has a Problem: If It Doesn’t Know the Answer, It Makes One Up" description: "As AI becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives, researchers are working to tackle its most glaring issue." date: "2025-02-12" modified: "2025-02-12" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/ai-makes-up-answers" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai hallucinations" - "ai trust" - "anthropic" - "chatbots" --- # Even the Most Advanced AI Has a Problem: If It Doesn’t Know the Answer, It Makes One Up ![As AI becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives, researchers are working to tackle its most glaring issue.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* As artificial intelligence becomes [integrated into our daily lives](), researchers are working to tackle what might be its most glaring and enduring issue: that AI "[hallucinates]()," or boldly spits out lies, when it doesn't know the answer. This rampant [AI problem]() is, according to researchers who [spoke to the *Wall Street Journal*](), rooted in a reticence to be caught not knowing something. According to José Hernández-Orallo, a professor at Spain’s Valencian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence, hallucination comes down to the way AI models are trained. "The original reason why they hallucinate is because if you don’t guess anything," Hernández-Orallo told the *WSJ*, *"*you don’t have any chance of succeeding." To demonstrate the issue, *WSJ* writer Ben Fritz devised a simple test: asking multiple advanced AI models who he was married to, a question that is not easily Google-able. The columnist was given multiple bizarre answers — a tennis influencer, a writer he'd never met, and an Iowan he'd never heard of — none of whom were correct. When I tried it out for myself, the hallucinations were even stranger: Google's Gemini informed me that I was married to a Syrian artist [named Ahmad Durak Sibai](), who I'd never heard of before who appears to have [passed away in the 1980s](). Roi Cohen and Konstantin Dobler, a pair of doctoral candidates at Germany's Hasso Plattner Institut, posit in [their recent research]() that the issue is simple: AI models, like most humans, are reluctant to say "I don't know" when asked a question whose answer lies outside of their training data. As a result, they make stuff up and confidently pass it off as fact. The Hasso Plattner researchers say they've devised a way to intervene early in the AI training process to teach models about the concept of uncertainty. Using their methodology, models not only can respond with an "IDK," but also seem to give more accurate answers when they *do* have the info. Like with humans, however, the models that Cohen and Dobler taught uncertainty sometimes responded with an IDK even when they *did* know — the AI version of an insecure schoolchild who claims not to know an answer when called upon in class, even when they do. Despite that setback, the researchers are confident that their hack is worthwhile, especially in situations where accuracy is paramount. "It’s about having useful systems to deploy," Dobler said, "even if they’re not superintelligent." Already, companies like Anthropic are [injecting uncertainty]() into their chatbots. As the *WSJ* writer Fritz noted, Anthropic's Claude was the only one to admit it didn't know the answer to the question. (and when I tested that question out on Claude, the chatbot declined to answer and warned that there was a possibility that it may "hallucinate" a response.) Beyond increasing the accuracy of responses, Hernández-Orallo, the Spanish professor, said that adding uncertainty to AI models may increase trust as well. "When you ask someone a difficult question and they say 'I cannot answer,' I think that builds trust," Hernández-Orallo told the *WSJ*. "We are not following that common-sense advice when we build AI." After being told that I am married to a nonagenarian artist entirely unknown to me, this *Futurism* reporter has to agree. **More on AI hallucinations:** [*Apple's AI Is Constantly Butchering Huge News Stories Sent to Millions of Users*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()