Episode 21: Moti Mizrahi: It’s Not a Hallucination, It’s BS
We've named our chatbots Claude and Gemini. We've given them voices, pronouns, and personalities. And according to Dr. Moti Mizrahi, Professor of Philosophy at the Florida Institute of Technology, that's no accident, and it's not harmless. In this episode of Responsible AI, Dr. Mizrahi joins us to explore the psychology and ethics of anthropomorphism: our deeply human tendency to project human qualities onto things that are decidedly not human.
Dr. Mizrahi and his colleagues have been tracking how media outlets tend to parrot tech company language, describing AI systems as "thinking," "reasoning," and even "feeling." That framing, he argues, shapes how we relate to these tools in ways we don't fully recognize. His prescription isn't a simple warning label. It goes deeper: design choices made before a product launches determine whether users form healthy or unhealthy relationships with AI. And right now, he says, "tech companies are kind of using us as guinea pigs."
The conversation ranges from the philosophical (can LLMs be trusted as "epistemic authorities"?) to the funny (are dogs really so different from large language models?). Along the way, Dr. Mizrahi makes the case that the term "hallucination" is itself a form of anthropomorphism, and that a more technically accurate word for what LLMs produce might simply be "bullshit," in the precise philosophical sense Michael Townsen Hicks and team discussed in a 2024 paper.
How do we choose between techno-optimism and techno-pessimism? Dr. Mizrahi's book, Playing God with Emerging Technologies, argues for a third path.
Other publications mentioned:
Mizrahi, M. (2026, March 19). The real danger of AI is treating it like a human. Los Angeles Times.
Hicks, M.T., Humphries, J. & Slater, J. ChatGPT is bullshit. Ethics Inf Technol 26, 38 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5
Frankfurt, H. G. (2005). On Bullshit. Princeton University Press.
Topics
01:03 Exploring Anthropomorphism in AI
06:35 The Ethics of AI Design and User Interaction
11:22 The Nature of Human-AI Relationships
16:46 Understanding AI's Limitations and Reliability
21:40 On AI Bullshit and Existential Risk
27:19 The Future of Technology Ethics
32:18 Reflections on AI's Impact
38:57 Navigating the AI Discourse: Beyond Boom and Doom
40:04 The Importance of Responsible AI Conversations
About Dr. Moti Mizrahi: Dr. Mizrahi is professor of philosophy at the Florida Institute of Technology school of arts and communication. He is most recently the author of Playing God with Emerging Technologies: How to Avoid the Traps of Techno-Optimism and Techno-Pessimism, published by Bloomsbury.
Dr. Mizrahi received his PhD in Philosophy from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Before joining Florida Tech, he taught at St. John’s University in New York City. He has published extensively on the philosophy of science, the scientific realism/anti-realism debate, the epistemology of philosophy, and argumentation.
Learn more about Dr. Mizrahi’s work at Florida Tech.
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