--- title: "Stable Diffusion CEO Suggests AI Is Peering Into Alternate Realities" description: "Those machine \"hallucinations\" that Large Language Models (LLM) are known for? According to one AI leader, they're just alternate realities, actually." date: "2023-03-08" modified: "2023-03-08" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/stable-diffusion-ceo-ai-alternate-realities" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "alternate reality" - "compression" - "the digest" --- # Stable Diffusion CEO Suggests AI Is Peering Into Alternate Realities ![Those machine "hallucinations" that Large Language Models (LLM) are known for? According to one AI leader, they're just alternate realities, actually.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Galaxy Brain Worried about the plausible BS — also known as machine "[hallucination]()" — that Large Language Models (LLMs) are known for spitting out? Not to fear. According to one high-profile AI entrepreneur, machine hallucination doesn't exist... but alternate realities apparently do. "LLMs don't hallucinate," Stability.ai CEO Emad Mostaque — whose buzzy AI firm is in the throes of a [fundraising effort]() that might put his company's valuation at about four billion beans — wrote in a [Monday night tweet](). "They're just windows into alternate realities in the latent space." "Just broaden your minds," he added. Right on. https://twitter.com/EMostaque/status/1632902759690240001 ## Fortune Telling It's certainly a poetic means of addressing the phenomenon of machine hallucination, and could even be a somewhat helpful means of understanding, or at least beginning to understand, the concept of latent space — put very simply, a concept in deep learning used to describe the "[hidden]()," compressed space between an input and output image. Still, regardless of whether a machine hallucination is perceived as a doorway to another reality or simple, straight-up machine-hawked BS, the fact remains: such isn't actually *our reality.* If you ask the machine to, say, [write you a bio](), and that bio is riddled with inaccuracies and embellishments, you can't pass that off and say "oh, well, that's just who I am in the latent space." (It would be a hell of a rebrand for "lying," though.) We'd also be remiss not to note that, in a more dangerous turn, trusting that all machine hallucinations are really just a doorway to alternate realities — literally, and not just as a metaphor for [lossy compression]() — also seems like a quick road to new-new-age conspiracy hell, where flawed tech is simultaneously deified and mystified as an all-knowing seer when it's really just... wrong about stuff. ## Akashic Records As you might imagine, other Twitter users had some thoughts about Mostaque's whimsical suggestion. "The noosphere incarnate. The Akashic Records in silicon. The collective unconscious," [tweeted]() one particularly enthusiastic respondent. "Call it what you will, that's the thing we are extracting, mind juice." "The next time someone lies to you, to your face, with every confidence," one much less impressed user [rebutted](). "I want you to say 'it's ok, that was just a window into alternate realities in latent space.'" The fairest — and perhaps most insightful — response of them all, however, was the most concise. "LLMs perceive training data," another user [wrote]() back, "not reality." **More on versions of reality:** [*Professor Insists That We Actually Don't Live in a Simulation*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()