Source: The Verge
As large language models generate increasingly credible-looking research, the academic citation system is breaking down—papers are being cited that don't exist or misrepresent actual findings, creating a verification crisis that undermines peer review. The problem isn't that AI is producing better science; it's that AI is producing better-looking papers, which makes it trivially easy for researchers (intentionally or not) to construct false citation chains that can persist through multiple layers of literature before anyone catches the forgery. This forces scientists back into manual verification of original sources—precisely when the volume of research is accelerating, creating a growing cost for legitimate scholarship.