Agatha Christie predicted LLM hallucination in 1969: 'Computers do not do that sort of thing'
abhiasap · reddit · 2026-10-12
A Reddit user dug up a passage from Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party: Mrs. Oliver teases Poirot for 'feeding information into yourself all day' like a computer, and asks what happens if it produces all the wrong answers. 'That would be impossible,' says Poirot. 'Computers do not do that sort of a thing.'
Mrs. Oliver's retort — computers aren't supposed to, 'but you'd be surprised at the things that happen sometimes' — reads today like a perfect description of LLM hallucination, written decades early. The OP adds the meta-joke: Poirot has never met an LLM, but he does know how to use an em dash.
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