# Opinion: ChatGPT hallucinates factual answers, author explains why it seems confident

Digest AI · Society & Work · published 2026-09-19T21:20:00Z

Canonical: https://digestai.news/story/opinion-chatgpt-hallucinates-factual-answers-author-explains-why-it-se

## Summary

The author recounts asking ChatGPT for a local supermarket’s opening hours and receiving a confident but wrong answer. The mistake felt unsettling because the model offered no uncertainty, unlike a human who would hedge. This prompted the writer to investigate how the system works.

Research revealed that ChatGPT does not retrieve facts; it predicts the next word based on patterns learned from large text corpora. Consequently, it can generate plausible‑sounding statements that are factually inaccurate, a phenomenon known as “hallucination.” The author concludes that the model is best suited for creative or open‑ended tasks—such as drafting messages, summarising text, or planning meals—where multiple correct answers exist, while factual queries should always be double‑checked.

Understanding this limitation has changed the author’s usage: rather than discarding the tool after errors, they now treat it as a helper for generation and rely on external verification for concrete information.

## Key points

- ChatGPT gave incorrect supermarket hours with full confidence, no uncertainty.
- The model creates answers by next‑word prediction, leading to hallucinations.
- Use ChatGPT for creative tasks; verify any factual information yourself.

## Why it matters

Recognising that large language models can confidently hallucinate helps users set realistic expectations and avoid misinformation in everyday applications.

## Sources

1. [The day ChatGPT lied to me. I looked into why AI makes mistakes so easily](https://note.com/shufu_ai_fukugyo/n/n4b6042f6a5b6?hl=en) (note.com, 2026-09-19)

## Cite

Digest AI, "Opinion: ChatGPT hallucinates factual answers, author explains why it seems confident", 19 September 2026, https://digestai.news/story/opinion-chatgpt-hallucinates-factual-answers-author-explains-why-it-se

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