Hallucination (artificial intelligence)

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This article is about the artificial intelligence concept. For other uses, see Hallucination (disambiguation).

In artificial intelligence, a hallucination or artificial hallucination is a confident response by an artificial intelligence that does not seem to be justified by its training data when the model has a tendency of "hallucinating" deceptive data.

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“So… are we going to talk about it or are we all just going to smile at each other like shy summer camp kids at the dance?”

You keep your tone light and your voice quiet, but both Jayne and Karissa chuckle and nod. The three of you scored one of the outdoor patio tables at A Pizza My Heart, the second-best pizza joint within a block of Bathurst Health.

“Ha ha Pritchard,” Jayne is trying and mostly succeeding at keeping a straight face, but you know her well enough now to detect the slight rosiness of her cheeks as she blushes. “Yeah, it was pretty…wild to do… you know… that?”

Jayne theatrically looks around as if concerned someone from work is standing behind her, and you and Karissa both grin. There is only one table on this side of the outdoor patio, and while every so often someone walks close in to or out of the restaurant no one is going to be able to hear more than a few random words, if they are able to hear anything. You sit and feel yourself relaxing in the shade as cars drive by and reflected sunlight flashes over the three of you.

It still seems unreal. Half an hour ago - 20 minutes, even - you were having sex with your girlfriends. In a meeting room. At work. In the middle of the day. You pumped Jayne full of cum on the table, then both of you fingered and groped and kissed sweet Karissa to a trembling orgasm while she squirmed on a random old office chair.

Just thinking about it, you feel yourself start to harden as you twitch in your pants.

Swallowing, you shift and try to focus up and listen to the conversation - or at least avoid getting a public stiffy like a pimply kid.

Jayne shakes her head, grinning, and continues, “So, after lunch we’ll go back and see what happened during our, uh, meeting.” She gives up the fight and blushes noticeably again, looking at Karissa then at you.

The ‘test’, for whatever good it does, will continue. The old server housing TAM is still powered off in your office, but once you all reconvene you’ll turn it back on and see what changes happened (or didn’t?) to the affection scores in the interval.

As she daintily shakes some chili flakes on to her slice of margherita pizza Karissa nods thoughtfully and says, “I know with our phones on and being just out in public we shouldn’t say some words or talk about some things out loud, but I am very interested in what happens. I bet the changes to the, stats and numbers, in that work report,” she pitches her voice down an octave just in case you and Jayne don’t follow along with her cunning code, “won’t be that different after all. I think paying attention to the report will mean we aren’t, like, surprised by the results.” With a final confident nod, the cheery young blonde lifts her slice and takes a big bite, closing her eyes and making an appreciative noise of pleasure.

“I honestly have no idea, the report being very low numbers wouldn’t be a surprise, or hell if the numbers are noticeably higher after re-doing them after a couple of hours I won’t be like shocked.” You have two slices of pizza and managed to eat half a slice while the three of you were walking from the counter to the table outside, you worked up a bit of an appetite this morning. A car passes on the street and you briefly squint at the sudden reflected sunlight in your eyes, but nothing so annoying as to make you want to move chairs. You are so content to sit and eat and talk that you may never leave this patio again. This is your home now.

Pushing her glasses up, Jayne finishes a forkful of salad and ponders for a moment before saying, “We’ll find out, for sure, but even then we have to decide what the numbers changing - or not changing - means? Is it good if the numbers don’t move? Feels like it would be, but we’ll have to think about it and maybe we can discuss it with our friend and try to learn more.”

That’s the sort of clear-eyed logic you’ve come to expect from Jayne, and if your mouth was not stuffed completely full of pepperoni pizza, you’d tell her that. Instead you chew and give her a proud nod, and you get the feeling she knows what you meant.

A large moving van pauses on the street directly in your line of sight, and you look at the painted logo on the side. It is a simple illustration of a moving truck with a house’s roof on it, the wheels spinning on the road to denote speed. Simple but effective, and you appreciate how it tells you that the company will help you move your house. Moving sucks, and when you think about it it is kind of weird how you take all the stuff that makes your home your home, toss it in a van, and then move it to a different house and then that is your home.

The moving company logo isn’t as simplistic as you thought at first; as the van slowly inches down the street you realize there is a flock of black birds flying in the blue sky above. Very detailed, even though the van is 20 to 30 feet away you can almost make out individual feathers on the largest bird, as if the wings are slowly flapping, and the bird’s eye, the one you can see, is a brilliant blue, but the eye is bigger than it should be, it really overwhelms not just the bird but the whole logo and the van and the street and

“Zach! Earth to Zachary!”

You start, almost kicking your legs out in front of you as if you were walking. Jayne is looking at you oddly, and Karissa is leaning forward as she repeats, “Hey Zach, you zoned out there?”

The van is driving away, and you are both disappointed and yet relieved you can no longer see whatever it was. It slips away like fog in the morning sun.

“Sorry Karissa, just saw… well nothing, I guess. Just daydreaming I suppose?” You put the crust you had been holding in mid-air like a weirdo down on your plate. You must have drifted away for a couple of seconds, not paying attention to your two girlfriends like a dummy. You chuckle wryly and give a quick shoulder check before mock-whispering, “I’ve had a pretty eventful morning at work, maybe I need a nap or something.”

She licks her lips and giggles, “Me toooo! I’m, uh, feeling pretty dang mellow myself! Like I had a very very fun time, maybe one of the most fun and, er, spiciest times of my life and I want to lay down and relax but I also want to run around and yell at strangers about how great I feel and how happy I am that I have a new boyfriend and a new girlfriend and I just feel like I could explode I’m so giddy but holy shit it’s like, just, fucking WEDNESDAY, like a normal-ass day of the week even though it feels like the whole world changed twice today and I have some dull as hell filing I have to do for Doris this afternoon but doesn’t it feel like we should go fool around again instead? Like, in a better world, we’d be able to just say ‘look society we know we have jobs and responsibilities and stuff BUT this is a special day so we need to talk and kiss and laugh and then do more than kiss and then have some pizza to recharge but we’ll get to our normal adult shit tomorrow’? Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

You are all laughing by the end of her jokey mini-rant but damn, you see her point. You should just be able to tell the entire world that you have some seriously awesome romantic relationship stuff to figure out and you need to take a personal day.

Clearly, Jayne agrees, and she says, “I’d sign off on that payroll exemption if I could Karissa! But really, thank god I’m not your manager because wow that would be terrible. Juniper would straight **** me.”

The talk of work and the office has your mind returning to The Affection Multiplier. A few quick bites makes short work of your remaining lunch, and both of the women are diligently eating again and conversation dies down except for some light banter. Everyone is still smiling and happy, and why wouldn't you be, but the entire world outside your table of three awaits and ultimately you need to go power up the server and figure out how to avoid the growing danger that TAM is certain exists. A danger that sounds potentially fatal, if one of the Multiplier’s administrators has already died, perhaps as a result of using it.

Because there is nothing you won’t do now to hold on to these two. To keep them both safe.