“Did you know? ChatGPT makes stuff up!”: Producing a Public Service Announcement about GenAI Hallucinations
Type of Presentation
Individual paper/presentation
Conference Strand
Outreach and Partnership
Target Audience
Higher Education
Second Target Audience
K-12
Location
Ballroom B
Relevance
After spending more and more time addressing ghost citations at the reference desk and during the library’s information literacy classes, and feeling very uneasy with a lot of discussions around using AI applications for research at our community college, we want to share our experience creating a “GenAI PSA” for our campus. Our project's immediate impact has been to raise awareness across the college’s community about ghost citations and other types of "hallucinated" output from popular generative AI applications (ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, etc.). Longer-term, this project creates a foundation for additional conversations that develop information literacy around AI in our rapidly changing educational and technological landscapes.
Proposal
“Did you know? ChatGPT makes stuff up!” This is the question that opens our library’s first Public Service Announcement (PSA). During our GICOIL presentation, we plan to discuss why our library decided to use a PSA approach to address ghost citations and other “hallucinated” output from generative AI applications, how we’re using the PSA to promote critical engagement with these evolving technologies, and how the PSA is helping to facilitate campuswide conversations about how generative AI tools work and what their limitations are.
We will first explore the development of different facets of the PSA, which includes engaging graphics and information about what generative AI is, what ghost citations and other AI hallucinations are, and an “Anatomy of a Ghost Citation” graphic that explains why each element of a ghost citation might appear real. Truly a team effort, we’ll highlight how different areas of the library have contributed to the creation, promotion, and evolution of the PSA.
We will also review responses we’ve received from a survey associated with the PSA that asks: “Has an AI ever lied to you?” The survey is open to students, faculty, staff, and community members, asks for respondents’ descriptions of “misadventures in GenAI,” and even allows participants to upload screenshots of inaccurate AI output. Responses have been informative and engaging and provide an avenue for centering user experiences in our AI information literacy conversations.
Finally, we will explore the other ways the PSA has helped the library push development of AI information literacy forward at our institution. Librarians continue to provide professional development opportunities for faculty and staff to learn more about how AI applications work and to help faculty rethink research assignments, now integrating the PSA into these events. Additionally, we’ve now tied in the marketing of our library’s credit course, “Critical and Creative Thinking in the Information Age,” referring to the PSA’s language and using similar graphics. We’ll also explore a document librarians have created for faculty review, Toward Transformational Knowledge + Learning Dispositions + Skills for AI Information Literacy, that has been informed by conversations around the PSA and that is intended to facilitate intentional and cohesive development of AI information literacy across our college’s curriculum.
Short Description
“Did you know? ChatGPT makes stuff up!” This is the question that opens our library’s very first Public Service Announcement (PSA). Learn about using a PSA approach to address ghost citations and other “hallucinated” output from popular generative AI applications, about promoting critical engagement with these evolving technologies, and about facilitating campuswide conversations about how generative AI tools work and what their limitations are.
Keywords
GenAI, Ghost Citations, AI Hallucinations, AI Information Literacy
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Whitlock, Brandy M. and Caswell, Cameron, "“Did you know? ChatGPT makes stuff up!”: Producing a Public Service Announcement about GenAI Hallucinations" (2026). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 19.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2026/2026/19
“Did you know? ChatGPT makes stuff up!”: Producing a Public Service Announcement about GenAI Hallucinations
Ballroom B
“Did you know? ChatGPT makes stuff up!” This is the question that opens our library’s first Public Service Announcement (PSA). During our GICOIL presentation, we plan to discuss why our library decided to use a PSA approach to address ghost citations and other “hallucinated” output from generative AI applications, how we’re using the PSA to promote critical engagement with these evolving technologies, and how the PSA is helping to facilitate campuswide conversations about how generative AI tools work and what their limitations are.
We will first explore the development of different facets of the PSA, which includes engaging graphics and information about what generative AI is, what ghost citations and other AI hallucinations are, and an “Anatomy of a Ghost Citation” graphic that explains why each element of a ghost citation might appear real. Truly a team effort, we’ll highlight how different areas of the library have contributed to the creation, promotion, and evolution of the PSA.
We will also review responses we’ve received from a survey associated with the PSA that asks: “Has an AI ever lied to you?” The survey is open to students, faculty, staff, and community members, asks for respondents’ descriptions of “misadventures in GenAI,” and even allows participants to upload screenshots of inaccurate AI output. Responses have been informative and engaging and provide an avenue for centering user experiences in our AI information literacy conversations.
Finally, we will explore the other ways the PSA has helped the library push development of AI information literacy forward at our institution. Librarians continue to provide professional development opportunities for faculty and staff to learn more about how AI applications work and to help faculty rethink research assignments, now integrating the PSA into these events. Additionally, we’ve now tied in the marketing of our library’s credit course, “Critical and Creative Thinking in the Information Age,” referring to the PSA’s language and using similar graphics. We’ll also explore a document librarians have created for faculty review, Toward Transformational Knowledge + Learning Dispositions + Skills for AI Information Literacy, that has been informed by conversations around the PSA and that is intended to facilitate intentional and cohesive development of AI information literacy across our college’s curriculum.
