Recognizing AI capability boundaries

Knowing AI's limits prevents expensive mistakes. These aren't bugs that updates will fix. Here are the fundamental limits in how AI works:

• AI matches patterns from training data. It doesn't truly understand anything. Ask about recent events or specialized topics, and it might make things up. It sounds confident even when wrong.
• "Hallucination" is AI's most dangerous limit. It creates false facts that sound real. Fake research citations. Made-up statistics. Events that never happened. This isn't broken AI. It's how these models work. Always verify facts, especially numbers, dates, and citations.
• Complex reasoning shows more limits. AI struggles with cause-and-effect, mathematical proofs, and logic that needs real understanding. Changing temperature settings makes outputs more creative or careful, but doesn't improve accuracy.
• AI can't truly feel or make ethical choices. It writes sympathetic messages by copying patterns, not from understanding. It lists ethical rules but can't handle real moral dilemmas. Keep humans in charge of decisions needing empathy or ethics.