semantic drift
/sɪˈmæntɪk ˌdrɪft/
subtle shifts in meaning of key terms through a conversation
semantic drift in a sentence
“Semantic drift changed what 'the system' referred to mid-discussion.”
Origin of semantic drift
Greek sēmantikos significant + Old Norse drífa to drive
Related Words
overconfidence
expressing certainty beyond what the model's actual knowledge warrants
lost in the middle
the tendency to miss information buried midway through a long context
refusal
a model declining a request, sometimes wrongly, when it misreads intent as harmful
data contamination
test material leaking into training data, inflating benchmark scores
prompt leakage
a model disclosing confidential instructions or other non-public prompt content in its output
hallucination
generating content that is unsupported by the available evidence or inconsistent with established facts