Day 35 of Embracing the wonders of life!

As I traveled into Seattle and caught sight of the Space Needle, I snapped a quick picture. Looking at it later, I noticed the image was slightly unsharp, almost as if it were a hallucination—an interesting word that had come up repeatedly during our discussions with the tech firms we visited. They spoke of "hallucination" in the context of Generative AI (GenAI), where if the system lacks proper guardrails, it starts to hallucinate, producing outputs that seem real but are factually inaccurate.

As I reflected on this, it struck me that the same concept applies to our own thinking. Just like the blurry photograph, if we don’t put guardrails around our thoughts, our minds can become distorted, wandering into states of unreality. The term "hallucination" itself comes from the Latin hallucinari, meaning "to wander in the mind," and while it’s easy to think of hallucinations as something rare or extreme, we all risk subtle forms of it in everyday life.

When we fail to set clear mental boundaries—whether through critical thinking, self-awareness, or openness to diverse perspectives—we can become untethered from reality. We fall into cognitive traps, believe misinformation, or allow emotions to distort our judgment. Like an AI model that generates false outputs without proper controls, our minds can wander, perceiving the world not as it is, but as we imagine it to be, often to our detriment.

The blurry image of the Space Needle reminded me of this. In both technology and life, clear thinking requires intention and structure. My advice? Do wander in your mind, their might be interesting thought you will find there. But keep those mental guardrails in place—question assumptions, verify information, and cultivate self-awareness—so that both your decisions and your perception of reality remain sharp and true.