How unique are hallucinated citations offered by generative Artificial Intelligence models?
This paper investigates how generative AI produces and propagates hallucinated academic references, focusing on the recurring non-existent citation 'Education Governance and Datafication' attributed to Ben Williamson and Nelli Piattoeva. Drawing on 137 accessible source papers identified through Google Scholar and Google searches, the study analyses the structure, recurrence, and onward citation of this phantom reference. It shows that hallucinated citations are not random inventions but patterned recombinations of real authors, journals, dates, and keywords, with duplication occurring in nearly 30% of cases. The paper also reports a structured interrogation of ChatGPT 5-mini about how it...
| Authors | Dirk HR Spennemann |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.DL |
| Published | 31 March 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 31 March 2026 |
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