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by strange_quark 146 days ago
I’ve used Claude code to debug and sometimes it’ll say it knows what the issue is, then when I make it cite a source for its assertions, it will do a web search and sometimes spit out a link whose contents contradict its own claim.

One time I tried to use Gemini to figure out 1950s construction techniques so I could understand how my house was built. It made a dubious sounding claim about the foundation, so I had it give me links and keywords so I could find some primary sources myself. I was unable to find anything to back up what it told me, and then it doubled down and told me that either I was googling wrong or that what it told me was a historical “hack” that wouldn’t have been documented.

These were both recent and with the latest models, so maybe they don’t fully fabricate links, but they do hallucinate the contents frequently.

1 comments

> maybe they don’t fully fabricate links

Grok certainly will (at least as of a couple months ago). And they weren't just stale links either.

After getting beaten for telling the truth so frequently, who wouldn’t start lying?