I find Julian Jaynes theory interesting when looking at Artificial Intelligence hallucinations. Julian Jaynes proposes the concept of the bicameral mind in the book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
He proposes that verbal hallucinations were common and ubiquitous in Ancient societies and were the precursor to consciousness as we know it today. The right side and left side of the brain communicated through auditory hallucinations. The hallucinations presenting as the word of god would be very real to those who experienced this phenomenon. In Julian Jaynes estimation, this was akin to schizophrenia.
An AI hallucination is defined as a confident response that is not grounded in the AI’s training data. The presupposition regarding AI is we humans are defining the AI’s reality as the training dataset.
According to Jaynes, the bicameral mind was replaced by the consciousness after being grounded in the acquisition of metaphorical language learned by our history of narrative practice and memes.
Thus consciousness, like bicameral mentality, emerged as a neurological adaptation in society.
Jaynes further argues that divination, prayer, and oracles arose after the breakdown of the bicameral mind, in order to once again summon instructions from the “gods” whose voices were now silent.