The specific failure mode driving concern among scholars is not fabricated conclusions — it is the corrupted source layer. When a researcher reads an AI-generated summary of a paper, incorporates it into their own literature review, and cites the original paper they never fully read, the error is invisible at every checkpoint downstream. The final text carries a legitimate citation. The claim it supports was filtered through a summarization that was wrong . Peer reviewers check the logic of arguments; they do not re-read every source. The contamination survives review…