FIR #466: Still Hallucinating After All These Years

Not only are AI chatbots still hallucinating; by some accounts, it’s getting worse. Moreover, despite abundant coverage of the tendency of LLMs to make stuff up, people are still not fact-checking, leading to some embarrassing consequences. Even the legal team from Anthropic (the company behind the Claude frontier LLM) got caught. Also in this episode: Google has a new tool just for making AI videos with sound: what could possibly go wrong?Lack of strategic leadership and failure to communicate about AI’s ethical use are two findings from a new Global Alliance reportPeople still matter. Some overly exuberant CEOs are walking back their AI-first proclamationsGoogle AI Overviews lead to a dramatic reduction in click-throughsGoogle is teaching American adults how to be adults. Should they be finding your content? In his tech report, Dan York looks at some services shutting down and others starting up. Links from this episode: Google has a new tool just for making AI videosMeet Flow: AI-powered filmmaking with Veo 3Google’s Veo 3 marks the end of AI video’s ‘silent era’Google announces new video and image generation models Veo 3 and Imagen 4, alongside a new AI filmmaking tool Flow and expanded access to Lyria 2Ethan Mollick (@emollick) on XVeo 3 News Anchor ClipsGoogle has a new tool just for making AI videosChicago Sun-Times publishes made-up books and fake experts in AI debacleHow an AI-generated summer reading list got published in major newspapersChicago Sun-Times publishes made-up books and fake experts in AI debacleAnthropic’s lawyer was forced to apologize after Claude hallucinated a legal citationChicago Sun-Times Faces Backlash After Promoting Fake Books In AI-Generated Summer Reading ListYes, Chicago Sun-Times published AI-generated ‘summer reading list’ with books that don’t existGroundbreaking Report on AI in PR and Communication ManagementComms failing to provide leadership for AIPerplexity Response to Query about Failure to Implement AI StrategicallyEmbracing the Unknown: How Leaders Engage with Generative AI in the Face of UncertaintyGoogle is Teaching American Adults How to Be AdultsGoogle AI Overviews leads to dramatic reduction in clickthroughs for Mail OnlineShocking 56% CTR drop: AI Overviews gut MailOnline’s search trafficGoogle AI Overviews decrease CTRs by 34.5%, per new studyThe Google Exodus: Why 46% of Gen Z Has Abandoned Traditional SearchCompany Regrets Replacing All Those Pesky Human Workers With AI, Just Wants Its Humans BackHow Investors Feel About Corporate Actions and Causes Links from Dan York’s Tech Report Skype shuts down for good on Monday: NPRGlitch is basically shutting downInvesting in what moves the internet forwardBluesky: “We’re testing a new feature! Starting this week, select accounts can add a livestream link to sites like YouTube or Twitch, and their Bluesky profile will show they’re live now.”Bridgy FedFedi ForumTake It Down Act 2025 (USA) Mike Macgirvin The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, June 23. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [e-mail]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript Shel Holtz (00:01) Hi everybody and welcome to episode number 466 of Four Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz in Concord, California. @nevillehobson (00:10) and I’m Neville Hobson in the UK. Shel Holtz (00:13) And this is our monthly long form episode for May 2025. We have six reports to share with you. Five of them are directly related to the topic du jour of generative artificial intelligence. And we will get to those shortly. But first, Neville, why don’t you tell us what we talked about in our ⁓ short form midweek episodes since You know, my memory’s failing and I don’t remember. @nevillehobson (00:44) ⁓ Yeah, some interesting topics we’ve had a handful of short form episodes, 20 minutes more or less, since the last monthly, which we published on 28th of April. And I’ll start with that one because that takes us forward. That was an interesting one with a number of topics. The headline topic was cheaters never prosper, said, unless you pay for what you create. And that was related to a university student who was expelled for developing an AI driven tool to help applicants to software coding jobs cheat on the tests employers require them to take. And it had mixed views all around with people thinking, hey, this is cool. And it’s ...