Stop Asking the LLM Whether Its Source Is Real

Short summary

LLMs hallucinate plausible-looking citations that can't be self-verified—they lack access to authoritative data and suffer confirmation bias. Implement external verification instead: check source existence via DOI APIs, validate journal credibility, and spot-check content claims. Apply this pipeline to all agent-generated references.

• •LLMs generate fabricated citations that appear real; asking them to verify their own work is pointless due to lack of external data and confirmation bias
• •Implement three-tier external verification: DOI resolution (source exists), credibility checks (legitimate journal/conference), content fidelity (claims are supported)
• •This verification pipeline applies universally—tickets, CVEs, docs, commits—verification must come from external truth systems, not model memory

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