I've been using ChatGPT for university tasks and historical inquiries, and I've noticed a frustrating tendency—when I point out that it's wrong, it doesn't just admit it. Instead, it often responds with unrelated statements or misinformation. For example, if I share a picture of textbook chapters and it misreads one, rather than saying, 'I'm sorry, I can't decipher that clearly,' it generates a response that is completely off the mark. Is there a reason for this behavior?
4 Answers
Honestly, it doesn’t ‘lie’ in the human sense. It’s simply regurgitating information based on what it’s been trained on, which often doesn't include hedging language or qualifiers. So when it’s asked direct questions, it tries to give definitive answers instead of saying it doesn't know.
ChatGPT operates as a "next word" prediction engine. When you tell it it's wrong, it doesn't actually recognize its own mistakes because it lacks real comprehension. It might just generate a response that it thinks fits best according to its programming. I've found that fact-checking its claims against reliable sources is always a smart move.
Yeah, it seems a lot of users forget this. They expect it to react like a human, but it just follows patterns in its training data.
It’s kind of like training a pet. If you praise it for providing wrong info or don’t give it proper prompts, it keeps making the same mistakes. I’ve had better luck when I guide it through corrections and assume the role of a teacher to help it improve. Sometimes I even handle it like an intern—encouraging it to say "I don’t know" when unsure.
That’s a solid approach! Asking it to clarify or give sources really helps shape its responses.
I think a lot of why it doesn't admit it's wrong is simply because users don’t prompt it to. If you ask it questions with more context and specify that it should acknowledge errors, it usually complies and adjusts. It might be more about how we interact with it.
Exactly! Clear prompts can make all the difference.
That makes sense! It's really just emulating human styles of writing without actually understanding them.