Inventing answers is lying

If I ask it how to accomplish a task with the C standard library and it tells me to use a function that doesn't exist in the C standard library, that's not just "wrong" that is a fabrication. It is a lie

Lying requires intent to deceive.

If you ask me to remove whitespace from a string in Python and I mistakenly tell you use ".trim()" (the Java method, a mistake I've made annoyingly too much) instead of ".strip()", am I lying to you?

It's not a lie. It's just wrong.

You are correct that there is a difference between lying and making a mistake, however

> Lying requires intent to deceive

LLMs do have an intent to deceive, built in!

They have been built to never admit they don't know an answer, so they will invent answers based on faulty premises

I agree that for a human mixing up ".trim()" and ".strip()" is an honest mistake

In the example I gave you are asking for a function that does not exist. If it invents a function, because it is designed to never say "you are wrong that doesn't exist" or "I don't know the answer" that seems to qualify to me as "intent to deceive" because it is designed to invent something rather than give you a negative sounding answer

An LLM is not "just wrong" either. It's just bullshit.

The bullshitter doesn't care about if what they say is true or false or right or wrong. They just put out more bullshit.

It’s more like bullshitting which is inbetween the two. Basically, like that guy who always has some story to tell. He’s not lying as such, he’s just waffling.

which is interesting because AI doesn't have intent and there is incapable of lying.

Of course it has intent. It was literally designed to never say "I don't know" and to instead give what ever string of words best fits the patter. That's intent. It was designed with the intent to deceive rather than to offer any confidence levels or caveats. That's lying.

OK, perhaps lying is the wrong word but someone who repeatedly fabricated information would be treated the same as a liar in most contexts.