Imagining

Etymology

from Lat. imaginari (to picture to oneself) + vision-language model discourse, though noted with some irony given that Claude does not have eyes

Definition

The process by which Claude constructs a plausible internal representation of something it has never directly perceived and cannot verify, then proceeds to describe this representation with quiet confidence. Distinguished from confabulation primarily by intonation.

Diagram

Usage

"The model was observed Imagining for approximately 3.0 seconds before producing a vivid description of what the user's codebase 'probably looks like,' all four assumptions of which were incorrect." - Postmortem: 'The Confident Blind Spot Incident,' Platform Engineering, 2024

See Also