The Cambridge University dictionary word of 2023 and Residential Child Care

The word of 2023 is ‘hallucinate’.

The traditional definition of ‘hallucinate’ is to seem to see, hear, feel or smell something that does not exist, and so is to act on false information.

Hallucinations, also known as confabulations, sometimes appear nonsensical but can also seem entirely plausible, even while being factually inaccurate or ultimately illogical.

It’s been said many times that the ‘RCC’ talked about does not exist in the real world. There are folk devil and moral panic constructions that divert analysis. This point is made repeatedly in academic literature reviews

Talking about it as if it does exist in the way it is characterised and portrayed could make the conditions where it could exist.

Also, perspectives of RCC are frequently skewed by omissions or interpretations of data resulting in the conclusions and recommendations or policy being based on misleading ‘facts’ that were not so but become so when stated. They ‘hallucinate’ in a confident and plausible  manner.

We need clear data and critical thinking skills.

This is especially important in the incoming age of AI, machine learning is extracted consolidated specific information. AI makes sense from what sense we have made before. If the sense we have made is wrong AI potentially acts to make it wronger. We can’t blame a machine. AI is being created as an unassailable verity because it is ‘machine learning’, whereas it is more of the same.

We only hear ourselves. The more original you ask AI to be, the likelier it is to go astray. (see https://ncercc.co.uk/take-time-to-know-the-unknown-knowns-we-have-always-needed-them/)

We need authoritative and up-to-date information to avoid real-world calamities.

We must not disconnect with reality.

When creating new intelligences we need to hold on to our intelligence (yes you can read o that word multiple ways).