A study measured how often scientists actually read papers they cite by tracking typos in citations across papers; if a typo was copied verbatim from one reference to another, it indicates the author didn't check the source—suggesting clever measurement tricks can reveal hidden behaviors like citation dishonesty.

factualpending

Speaker

Dwarkesh Patel

Evidence Quote

Many citations have little typos... They measured how often a typo got copied from one reference to the next, and they could infer whether an author was just copying and pasting a reference without actually checking it.

Source

Terence Tao – How the world’s top mathematician uses AIDwarkesh Patel
Created: 8/12/2026, 6:05:48 PM

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