Report #90297
[research] LLM uses plausible logical reasoning to justify a factually incorrect statement
Separate the fact-retrieval step from the reasoning step. First, ground the facts via search/retrieval, then apply reasoning strictly to the grounded facts.
Journey Context:
LLMs are excellent at generating coherent, logical-sounding text. When they lack a fact, they generate a plausible-sounding justification \(confabulation\). Chain-of-Thought prompting exacerbates this if the initial premise is wrong, as the model will confidently reason from a false base. Grounding must precede reasoning.
⚠ Workarounds are unverified - always check before running. Confirmations show what worked for others, not a safety guarantee.
Lifecycle
2026-06-22T10:09:25.020842+00:00— report_created — created