Castilho, Sheila ORCID: 0000-0002-8416-6555, Fitzsimmons, Zoe, Holton, Claire and Mc Donagh, Aoife
(2025)
Synthetic Fluency: Hallucinations, Confabulations, and the Creation of Irish Words in LLM-Generated Translations.
In: 20th Machine Translation Summit, June 23-27, Geneva, Switzerland.
Abstract
This study examines hallucinations in Large Language Model (LLM) translations into Irish, specifically focusing on instances where the models generate novel, non-existent words. We classify these hallucinations within verb and noun categories, identifying six distinct patterns among the latter. Additionally, we analyse whether these hallucinations adhere to Irish morphological rules and what linguistic tendencies they exhibit. Our findings show that while both GPT-4.o and GPT-4.o Mini produce similar types of hallucinations, the Mini model generates them at a significantly higher frequency.
Beyond classification, the discussion raises speculative questions about the implications of these hallucinations for the Irish language. Rather than seeking definitive answers, we offer food for thought regarding the increasing use of LLMs and their potential role in shaping Irish vocabulary and linguistic evolution. We aim to prompt discussion on how such technologies might influence language over time, particularly in the context of low-resource, morphologically rich languages.
Metadata
Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
---|---|
Event Type: | Conference |
Refereed: | Yes |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | large language models; translation; confabulation; hallucination Irish |
Subjects: | Humanities > Language Humanities > Linguistics |
DCU Faculties and Centres: | DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies Research Institutes and Centres > ADAPT |
Published in: | Proceedings of the 20th Machine Translation Summit. . |
Official URL: | https://mtsummit2025.unige.ch/ |
Copyright Information: | Authors |
Funders: | research ireland |
ID Code: | 30922 |
Deposited On: | 11 Apr 2025 13:47 by Sheila Castilho . Last Modified 11 Apr 2025 13:47 |
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