Module 4 · Career, projects and honesty Lesson 14 of 15
Limits, hallucinations and how to check
These tools predict plausible text. It is very good at a look and unreliable at facts: hands, text, logos, exact product details and specific real places all need checking or editing That is a mechanism, not a moral failing — and the habit it demands is the habit of asking "where did this come from?" out loud, every time, before you use an answer.
The concept
A model does not look things up unless it has been given a way to look things up, and even then it can attach a real number to the wrong claim. It is very good at a look and unreliable at facts: hands, text, logos, exact product details and specific real places all need checking or editing
So the rule is: numbers, dates, names, citations and legal or medical claims get checked in a primary source before they leave your hands. Everything else — drafts, structure, explanations, practice — is fair game.
Three questions to ask before you trust an answer. Where did this come from? What would make it false? Who is the original source, and can I open it? If the third one has no answer, you have writing material, not facts.
Look at the image at full size before you use it, and check the four corners. Corners are where a sixth finger and a stray watermark live.
Worked example
Generate a poster and count the fingers. Then read any lettering. Those two checks catch most of what will embarrass you.
Your practice task
Ask for one statistic with its source, then open the source. Sometimes it exists. Sometimes the citation is invented, and the number is close enough to a real one to be dangerous. Either way you will remember the exercise.
Do this before moving on. Reading a solution teaches the shape of it; typing it teaches you.
Key takeaway
A model does not look things up unless it has been given a way to look things up, and even then it can attach a real number to the wrong claim.
Keep your place in this course
A free account saves which lessons you have finished and unlocks the certificate. The lesson itself stays free to read.
Create free account or sign inCourse complete
You finished every lesson.
Your certificate is ready, and the projects you built are the proof to attach to an application.
Almost there
15 lessons left of 15
Finish every lesson to unlock the certificate. Each one ends in a practice task — do them and the final project brief writes itself.