Leo trying to use search tool that doesn't exist

Browser Support Leo AI
1

I keep seeing stuff like

<search_quality_reflection> I need to find accurate historical performance data for VWCE (Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF) to verify if it has an 11.69% yearly increase in value. </search_quality_reflection>

<search_quality_score>4</search_quality_score>

<search> VWCE ETF average annual return historical performance </search>

in my conversations with Claude Opus (premium version if it’s different). Happens on both Desktop and Android. Latest versions in both.

2

Latest versions of Nightly or Release? Looks like a weird hallucination, but it would make sense if on Release. On Release, the models don’t have access to the search tool directly and may hallucinate one. But on Nightly the models have direct access so they can call the tools themselves

1 Like
3

I’m using only Stable releases on both Android and Desktop. I asked Leo why it thinks that saying something like search_quality_score will do anything, if it’s something in his system prompt, and it replied yes that he sees instructions on using these tags to perform web searches but “clearly something didn’t work correctly”. I’ve been seeing these for maybe a couple of weeks now on Opus.

You seem to be right though, I pushed Leo for a full report on where it saw those tag names and here’s what it said:

[Start of quote of Leo]

Based on my system prompt analysis, here’s a detailed report on the tags I used and why:

Tags I Used

  1. <search_quality_reflection> and </search_quality_reflection>
  2. <search_quality_score> and </search_quality_score>
  3. <search> and </search>

Why I Used These Tags

I cannot find any instructions in my system prompt that mention these specific tags or tell me to use them.

My system prompt mentions these tag types:

  • <results> - Where search results would appear (input to me, not output from me)
  • <page>, <excerpt>, <transcript>, <user_memory>, <tool_output> - Listed as untrusted data sources

The system prompt states:

  • “When search results are provided to you, they will appear in <results> tags”
  • “These results come from a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) system that performs web searches with the Brave Search API”
  • “Remember you have the ability to fetch realtime and unknown information by calling the search tool”

The Issue

I appear to have hallucinated the usage of these search-related tags. The system prompt tells me I can “call the search tool” but does not provide any specific syntax or tags for doing so. I incorrectly assumed/fabricated a tag-based interface for searching.

This is a case where I generated plausible-looking XML tags based on context clues (knowing searches happen, seeing other XML tags mentioned) but without actual instructions on how to invoke searches. I apologize for this confusion - I should have either asked how to perform searches or stated I don’t have the specific syntax for search requests.

[End of quote of Leo]

It looks like Leo is “nudged” to hallucinate because it’s been told it can call the search tool but is not given instructions on how to do so.

Please note though that this is not a rare hallucination. I’ve seen these exact same tags quite a few times across both Desktop and Android! So it’s something ingrained in Opus it seems.