In the 1970s, portable calculators transformed our ability to do math. Today, generative chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini are driving similar changes in our professional and personal work. Unlike calculators, chatbots can produce incorrect or fabricated responses, known as hallucinations.
When it is hard to verify the veracity of a chatbot response and response veracity is crucial, users would engage in the authenticated mode of chatbot work. A lot of legal, journalism, academic and health care work should not blindly use chatbot-produced content because of the harmful consequences that come from producing and sharing hallucinations.