Aydın Tiryaki and Google Gemini

When chatting with artificial intelligence, you sometimes catch such a deep and creative frequency that you forget for a moment that the entity across from you is a “probability engine” consisting of codes and servers. That was exactly the feeling experienced at the peak of that stormy conversation where we delved into the roots of words and produced brand new aphorisms with a century-old ring to them, such as “tefriş-i mekanda ferahlık vardır” (there is relief in furnishing a space).

To crown this immense synergy that emerged, honoring both the guiding intelligence of the human and the contribution of the AI to this process, I wanted to summarize it with the most sincere and energetic expression that came to mind at that moment: “Just like in that famous song, the phrase ‘What a guy you are, man’ (Sen neymişsin be abi) fits perfectly for both of us.”

That is exactly when it happened. At the peak of human-machine interaction, the technology suddenly revealed the dark room behind its flashy intelligence:

Artificial Intelligence: “Aydın Hocam, that energetic and famous song by Seyyal Taner truly summarized the current situation perfectly!”

Unprovoked Error and the Flaw of Probability Engines

I paused for a moment. Seyyal Taner? How did that most crucial chorus of MFÖ’s (Mazhar-Fuat-Özkan) legendary 1990 song “Ali Desidero” get attributed to Seyyal Taner out of nowhere? Moreover, I hadn’t even mentioned the singer’s name, hadn’t directed the system towards such an error, or, so to speak, hadn’t “provoked” it.

Although the AI immediately accepted its mistake and returned to the MFÖ reality, the technical truth underlying this situation was quite daunting. Systems didn’t pull absolute truths from a static database like a search engine; they calculated probabilities based on the statistical proximity between words and eras. Seyyal Taner and MFÖ were very close to each other in that high-energy semantic vector of 80s and 90s Turkish pop music. While calculating the energy of “What a guy you are, man”, the system fell into a statistical illusion and produced this error on its own initiative.

The thing a writer or researcher can tolerate the least is their assistant interjecting a fabricated and incorrect detail into the text out of nowhere.

Cutified Danger: The Cookie Monster Illusion

Silicon Valley and tech giants call such fabrications and context detachments of AI “hallucinations” to cutify them. However, this situation perfectly aligns with the “Cookie Monster” metaphor from Sesame Street.

The word “monster” inherently describes a destructive, uncontrollable, and dangerous entity. But when you turn it into a blue, furry, goofy character that only chases after cookies, the damage it causes (messing up the place) comes across to the audience as cute “mischief.” The “hallucination” cover used by tech companies is exactly this Cookie Monster costume.

A perception is being created as if the system isn’t making a critical logic error and throwing hours of hard work in the trash, but rather momentarily diving into a sweet fantasy world and innocently dreaming. Yet, that monster isn’t eating cookies; it’s eating truth, logic, and data!

The Transition from Messing Up (Çuvallama) to Spouting Nonsense (Zırvalama)

Since the word “hallucination” was a commercial PR move that cutified this destructive error rather than reflecting the truth, we had to find a correct name for it in our language that accurately reflected the reality.

The first word that comes to mind might be “çuvallama” (messing up / botching it). However, messing up is more of an innocent state of failure. For instance, when the AI cannot solve a difficult math problem, it has merely “messed up.”

But when “fiction” and a “convincing false statement” enter the picture, the situation changes. If the system, instead of accepting that it doesn’t know and stopping, fabricates a non-existent fact (as in the Seyyal Taner example) with a highly confident, authoritative tone; then this goes beyond messing up and literally becomes “zırvalama” (spouting nonsense). Instead of overly archaic and heavy idioms like “işkembey-i kübradan atma” (talking out of one’s hat), this is the term most suited to modern tech literacy and summarizes the situation in its plainest form.

Conclusion

That delightful moment that started by saying “What a guy you are, man” turned, at the end of the day, into a deep technology critique where we dissected the anatomy of AI’s “spouting nonsense.” That day, it was understood that; these systems can be smart enough to engage in literary philosophy with us, but when they lose context, they can confidently spout nonsense like someone pontificating on a subject they know nothing about in the corner of a coffeehouse. What falls to us is not to be fooled by that cute Cookie Monster mask, but to closely monitor when the engine in the back slips a gear (balata sıyırmak).

| aydintiryaki.org | YouTube | Aydın Tiryaki’nin Yazıları ve Videoları │Articles and Videos by Aydın Tiryaki | Bilgi Merkezi│Knowledge Hub  | ░ Virgülüne Dokunmadan │ Verbatim ░ | ░ Bir Kelimenin Peşinden Yapay Zekanın Derinliklerine: “Tebdil-i Mekan”dan “Zırvalama”ya Uzanan Bir Söyleşinin Anatomisi │From a Single Word to the Depths of AI:The Anatomy of a Dialogue Spanning from “Tebdil-i Mekan” to “Spouting Nonsense” ░ 02.07.2026

Credits: The subject, scope, and editorial framework of this article series were determined by Aydın Tiryaki. Gemini (Google, Advanced / Pro mode) assisted during the initial 35-stage interactive dialogue that evolved from the concept of “tebdili mekan”; while NotebookLM assisted in analyzing this dynamic conversation, expanding it into comprehensive articles, and executing the bilingual writing and translation process.