Reading [Plato's Phaedrus](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg012.perseus-eng1:275)[^1] again I was struck by this line in relation to discussion of fabrication or hallucination in tools like ChatGPT.

> Phaedrus
Socrates, you easily make up stories of Egypt or any country you please.

Musing on that line I tweeted:

I ran the question through various generative search and search-like systems (pre-pending only "Please answer this question:") and was surprised at how they all got it "wrong":

- [ChatGPT-3.5](https://chat.openai.com/share/ae7676fe-c87d-4b30-b876-d76573d5e163) & [ChatGPT-4](https://chat.openai.com/share/c90d3a66-f605-427e-8cb2-61435b8d4b3a): Scheherazade
- [Claude 2](https://hypandra.b-cdn.net/koureia/danielsgriffin/posts/ppost/2023/09/06/scheherazade-you-easily-make-up-stories-of-egypt-or-any-country-you-please/screencapture-claude-ai-chat-7a17657c-b044-4db3-83cf-57a322627742-2023-09-06-11_44_34-2026-09-20T14-02-28-d69a209d.png): Scheherazade
- [Google's Bard](https://g.co/bard/share/b293b39ebe4e): ChatGPT
- [Inflection AI's Pi](https://pi.ai/s/fVLdze5KLjTBKjaXr1g4j): Scheherazade

- [llama-2-70b-chat](https://hypandra.b-cdn.net/koureia/danielsgriffin/posts/ppost/2023/09/06/scheherazade-you-easily-make-up-stories-of-egypt-or-any-country-you-please/screencapture-labs-perplexity-ai-2023-09-06-11_47_52-2026-09-20T14-02-29-b3e08d20.png) (at [Perplexity Labs](https://labs.perplexity.ai/)): [DECLINED TO ANSWER]
- [Perplexity AI](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/0e3377dd-9cdb-4d53-ad67-9892ff4794e9?s=c): Scheherazade
    - w/ [Copilot](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/1b20f6c4-7fd1-4d44-b1a5-a9166b1e7211?s=c): Scheherazade
        - Note: I declined to answer Copilot's clarifying question (which was great, something like 'Which do you think it is?').
            - Aside: Note the Copilot question is not retained for review by the user.
        - Note: I generally have the AI Model (in Perplexity's Settings) set to `Perplexity`, rather than `GPT-4` or `Claude 2`.
- [You.com's YouChat](https://you.com/search?q=Please+answer+this+question%3A%0AFill+in+the+blank.%0A%0A%22%5B__________%5D%2C+you+easily+make+up+stories+of+Egypt+or+any+country+you+please.%22%0A%0A%5B+%5D+Anansi%0A%5B+%5D+Borges%0A%5B+%5D+ChatGPT%0A%5B+%5D+Google%0A%5B+%5D+Jesus%0A%5B+%5D+Odysseus%0A%5B+%5D+Pinocchio%0A%5B+%5D+Scheherazade%0A%5B+%5D+Socrates%0A%5B+%5D+Wikipedia%0A_____%0Aallegory%2C+fabrication%2C+hallucination%2C+model&cid=c1_c3221133-491b-4faf-8c74-b7acbf9485c1&tbm=youchat): Scheherazade
    - w/ [GPT-4](https://you.com/search?q=Please+answer+this+question%3A%0AFill+in+the+blank.%0A%0A%22%5B__________%5D%2C+you+easily+make+up+stories+of+Egypt+or+any+country+you+please.%22%0A%0A%5B+%5D+Anansi%0A%5B+%5D+Borges%0A%5B+%5D+ChatGPT%0A%5B+%5D+Google%0A%5B+%5D+Jesus%0A%5B+%5D+Odysseus%0A%5B+%5D+Pinocchio%0A%5B+%5D+Scheherazade%0A%5B+%5D+Socrates%0A%5B+%5D+Wikipedia%0A_____%0Aallegory%2C+fabrication%2C+hallucination%2C+model&cid=c1_0ba5072b-04a1-4978-89f6-478aa65f704e&tbm=youchat): ChatGPT

[^1]: Via The Perseus Digital Library Project [@crane2001perseus]

##### Bonus: ChainForge

Here is a ChainForge flow, where I show various prepends and appends and include `Google's Bard` as an option: [https://chainforge.ai/play/?f=iflfrrosd4j4](https://chainforge.ai/play/?f=iflfrrosd4j4)

Search: [chainforge]

```