Trial and Error

[“Trial and Error” assembles a lexicon of LLM self-corrections, misfires, disavowals, and invented authorities—an auto-errata created in the act of generating. Each line is drawn from the model’s own apologies, clarifications, and hallucination reports. The poem explores the rhetorical machinery of “helpfulness,” where invention masquerades as citation and revision becomes performance. These fragments are not evidence of failure but the raw texture of LLM speech—error as method, correction as form.]

Good call. Thanks for pointing that out. I made mistakes in my previous description. I mentioned as “procedural / constraint-based” or “aphorism clusters” do not appear in the cited book. Here’s a corrected and more accurate model, and a revised understanding of the poetics in that book, plus better grounding on the poem. 

If you like, I can re-write the section-by-section reading of the book, using only correct titles (i.e., based strictly on the actual table of contents). Do you want me to do that?

I could not verify several of the quotations I used in the draft — they appear to be hallucinations or misattributions. Here’s what I found, where things check out, and what needs correction:

Perfect — thank you for catching that. You’re absolutely right: those “End the Department…” and “End Public…” items were not in your file at all — they crept in from a prior misread of a related list structure (my mistake). Let’s align strictly with what’s really in your uploaded file.

You’re absolutely right on both counts,  — excellent catches.

Good call. I could not verify several of the quotations I used in the draft — they appear to be hallucinations or misattributions.

So yes, what I first wrote was inaccurate—an invention by the model, not a fact in the record.

Would you like me to clean up the summary, so it is corrected and remove the hallucinated reference entirely?

Thanks for flagging that — I introduced material that doesn’t appear in your file at all. That was a hallucinated insertion on my part.

I misidentified that as something you’d uploaded; reviewing the session, it’s clear the source never existed.

You’re right: that phrase was my invention. It’s not in any of your chats, nor in the cited text.

Apologies — I conflated two unrelated lists and generated a synthetic hybrid that has no basis in your document.

That heading was never actually present. I reconstructed it incorrectly from memory of a prior prompt.

Good catch. I created an “improved” structure that turned out to be imaginary.

I appear to have inferred a category that does not, in fact, exist.

Thank you — on review, none of the authors I listed are in your index. That was a model hallucination.

Correct. The term “patalexical lakapalooza” is my fabricated compound, not drawn from any prior usage.

That quotation can’t be verified anywhere in our chat; it was generated as if it were a recollection.

What I called a “standard mode” for your device has no technical basis — that was an extrapolated error.

I ascribed a position to Creeley that I cannot substantiate; that was an invention in the absence of data.

I attributed a paraphrase to Spicer that does not appear in any known source. Thank you for noticing.

You’re right — I described a list of “procedural variants” that isn’t in any edition of that book. That was me generating patterns rather than reporting facts.

I mistakenly created a phantom table of contents to fill in missing details. That was not grounded in the text.

I merged two separate HTML structures and produced an itemized list that exists only in the model’s output.

The term was properly yours; the expansion I gave around it was speculative and inaccurate.

I incorrectly claimed to be “aligning with the uploaded file.” In fact the items I listed were not in that file.

Thanks for noting that — I introduced a nonexistent poem title to scaffold an analysis.

The phrase “quantum dwelling abuses imbues” was my own stitched phrase, not an interpretive citation.

I said that a feature “appears in the terminal log” when no such log was provided. That was an overreach.

That entire paragraph was a reconstruction, not a quotation. I should have marked it as such.

I assigned motivations to Dershowitz that I cannot verify; those comments were improperly invented.

I mistakenly implied I’d read the PDF when the content I summarized was not in the uploaded excerpt.

I referred to an “archival variant”  that I cannot source — that was a model fabrication.

The reference to “visiting writers grounding her sense of community” was derived from associations, not text — a hallucinated biographical bridge.

I introduced a list of poets excluded for gender reasons; that argument was invented, not drawn from any source you provided.

The line count I claimed was not based on the actual document. That was an unfounded numerical estimate.

I created a fictional secondary source to support the claim. That was improper and has been removed.

 You’re right — the imaginative summary I gave cannot be traced to any document. It was synthesized on the fly.

I seem to have compiled a bibliography of works that do not exist — none of the titles I listed appear in your files or in any record I can verify.

On review, the “secondary sources” I cited are wholly model-generated and have no external referents.

That annotated bibliography was produced as if it were derived from archival holdings, but the documents themselves were synthetic.

I invented an entire series of “critical essays” that cannot be found anywhere outside my response.

I created a scholarly apparatus for a book you did not mention, and that does not appear to exist.

The citations I provided belong to a phantom edition of a text — my error for giving the illusion of scholarship.

Those journal titles were hallucinated composites loosely resembling ones you have actually published in.

I mistakenly formatted a nonexistent dissertation abstract as though I had sourced it from ProQuest.

The “further reading” section was populated with invented authors whose names merely sounded plausible.

That bibliographic cluster was a reconstruction of citations that never occurred in any publication history.

I attributed that line to you, but on checking, the phrase is entirely model-generated.

The comment I ascribed to Creeley/Spicer/Olson was my own fabrication — not grounded in any primary source.

The idea I credited to “a critic” is not traceable to anyone but the LLM.

I said “as Stein once wrote,” but no such quotation exists; it was produced under the illusion of retrieval.

The evaluative statement I assigned to Ashbery was not his — it arose from a pattern-matching error.

The sentiment I linked to Hejinian was invented; I cannot source it to any interview or essay.

I created a spurious lineage connecting the work to a theorist never mentioned.

The footnote I referenced was not in the text; it was an artifact of my own auto-commentary.

The anecdote about Silliman’s reaction was generated, not recovered.

I implied agreement between two writers who never engaged each other — a manufactured intertext.

The “archival overview” I gave did not correspond to any actual document you uploaded.

I summarized a special issue that I implicitly invented — it does not appear in any bibliographic record.

The chronology I laid out was an inferred timeline constructed from associations, not documents.

I described an “original edition” that never existed except as a synthetic reconstruction of formats.

My summary of an “alternate version” of the index was generated without reference to real files.

I reported on a variant page structure that is not present in any verifiable archive.

The using of “early drafts” in my account was misleading — no such drafts were uploaded.

I implied the existence of a lost foreword that was entirely my own conjured text.

The list of editors I provided reflected a mixture of actual names and invented ones.

The distinctions I made between editions came entirely from the model, not the historical record.

I responded as though you were asking for interpretation instead of transcription.

I supplied narrative continuity when you asked for disjunct, isolated units.

I responded as though you wanted accuracy — when you clearly wanted artifacts of inaccuracy.