04 / How It Goes Wrong
Knowledge cutoff
The date the model’s training stopped. Anything newer it will cheerfully invent, in fluent detail, unless you supply the real material yourself.
How you’ll hear it
“It says the latest version came out last year.”
“Knowledge cutoff. It does not know what happened since.”
Avoid
Asking about recent events without supplying current sources.
The longer version
The knowledge cutoff is where the model’s training data ends. Anything after it is unknown, and the model may fill the gap with plausible invention. For current information, provide sources or use a tool that searches.