Facebook owner Meta had some very awkward questions to answer after its AI assistant denied that former president Donald Trump had been shot, even though he absolutely was indeed wounded by a gunman earlier this month — bizarre, conspiracy-laden claims that highlight the technology’s glaring shortcomings, even with the resources of one of the world’s most powerful tech companies behind it. It’s especially striking, considering that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Trump’s immediate reaction to being shot “badass” and inspiring, contradicting his company’s lying chatbot. In a blog post on Tuesday, Meta’s global head of policy Joel Kaplan squarely placed the blame on the AI’s tendency to “hallucinate,” a convenient and responsibility-dodging synonym for bullshitting. “These types of responses are referred to as hallucinations, which is an industry-wide issue we see across all generative AI systems, and is an ongoing challenge for how AI handles real-time events going forward,” Kaplan wrote. “Like all generative AI systems, models can return inaccurate or inappropriate outputs, and we’ll continue to address these issues and improve these features as they evolve and more people share their feedback.” But how much longer AI companies will be able to use “hallucinations” as an excuse for their outright lying AI systems remains to be seen. Despite tech giants’ best efforts, their much-hyped AI products continue to distort the truth with an astonishing degree of confidence. The incident also highlights how much AI companies are struggling with AI-generated content during a chaotic and misinformation-fuelled presidential election. After an onslaught…Meta's AI Says Trump Wasn't Shot