{"podcast":{"title":"Astral Codex Ten Podcast","slug":"astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483","podcast_index_feed_id":226483,"rss_url":"https://sscpodcast.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://sscpodcast.libsyn.com/website","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/1/2/d/4/12d4a6af46ce5199/SSC-Icon-large.png","author":"Jeremiah Prophet","episode_count":1170,"summary":"The official audio version of Astral Codex Ten, with an archive of posts from Slate Star Codex. It's just me reading Scott Alexander's blog posts.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-10T22:20:14.870262+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483"},"episode":{"title":"Shameless Guesses, Not Hallucinations","slug":"shameless-guesses-not-hallucinations","published_at":"2026-04-17T08:40:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483/shameless-guesses-not-hallucinations","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483","url":"https://sscpodcast.libsyn.com/shameless-guesses-not-hallucinations","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sscpodcast/Shameless_Guesses_Not_Hallucinations.mp3?dest-id=586545","summary":"I hate the term \"hallucinations\" for when AIs say false things. It's perfectly calculated to mislead the reader - to make them think AIs are crazy, or maybe just have incomprehensible failure modes. AIs say false things for the same reason you do. At least, I did. In school, I would take multiple choice tests. When I didn't know the answer to a question, I would guess. Schoolchild urban legend said that \"C\" was the best bet, so I would fill in bubble C. It was fine. Probably got a couple extra points that way, maybe raised my GPA by 0.1 over the counterfactual. Some kids never guessed. They thought it was dishonest. I had trouble understanding them, but when I think back on it, I had limits too. I would guess on multiple choice questions, but never the short answer section. \"Who invented the cotton gin?\" For any \"who invented\" question in US History, there's a 10% chance it's Thomas Edison. Still, I never put down his name. \"Who negotiated the purchase of southern Arizona from Mexico?\" The most common name in the United States has long been \"John Smith\", applying to 1/10,000 individuals. An 0.01% chance of getting a question right is better than zero, right? If I'd guessed \"John Smith\" for every short answer question I didn't know, I might have gotten ~1 extra point in my school career, with no downside. You can go further. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/shameless-guesses-not-hallucinations","meta_description":"I hate the term \"hallucinations\" for when AIs say false things. It's perfectly calculated to mislead the reader - to make them think AIs are crazy, or may…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":401,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483/episodes/shameless-guesses-not-hallucinations/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483/shameless-guesses-not-hallucinations.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}