FIELD NOTE / X
A citation can make the wrong decision look sourced.
The complete written thought and the evidence behind it. The video edition will follow its public release.
The written argument is here.
This approved X edition is on the journal now. Its video player and original platform link will appear after each public release is verified.
A citation can make the wrong decision look sourced.
Video caption
A citation can make the wrong decision look sourced. Usage data is not release authority. Do this because source text can contradict its summary. #EricFieldNotes
Full written post / accessibility read
In a fictional procurement review, an AI summary cites the vendor evaluation and says expansion was approved. The linked page reports strong trial usage. Its decision table still says legal and security approval pending. A valid link has laundered an unsupported authorization.
A second agent sees the citation and opens rollout tasks. It does not fabricate the page; it substitutes evidence of adoption for evidence of approval. More careful wording cannot fix a mismatched source claim.
At the commitment gate, retrieve the exact cited passage, decision version and named approving owner from a protected source store. Compare the claim approved with the passage's actual status. Reject if the span does not support that action or the owner is missing.
Require claim-level evidence and an authority readback before a plan becomes an executable task. If the passage supports usage but not permission, route the decision back to its owner.
#EricFieldNotes
Four-beat scene transcript
1. A citation can make the wrong decision look sourced.
In a fictional procurement review, an AI summary cites the vendor evaluation and says expansion was approved. The linked page reports strong trial usage. Its decision table still says legal and security approval pending. A valid link has laundered an unsupported authorization.
Visual: The URL is real; the approving sentence is not.
2. The evidence answers a different question.
A second agent sees the citation and opens rollout tasks. It does not fabricate the page; it substitutes evidence of adoption for evidence of approval. More careful wording cannot fix a mismatched source claim.
Visual: Usage data is not release authority.
3. Check the claim against the source span.
At the commitment gate, retrieve the exact cited passage, decision version and named approving owner from a protected source store. Compare the claim approved with the passage's actual status. Reject if the span does not support that action or the owner is missing.
Visual: Source ID alone cannot authorize action.
4. A link is a pointer, not a permission.
Require claim-level evidence and an authority readback before a plan becomes an executable task. If the passage supports usage but not permission, route the decision back to its owner.
Visual: Do this because source text can contradict its summary.
Research and claim limits
- Mohamed et al., LLM as a Broken Telephone, ACL 2025 (S167)
- OpenAI Agents SDK: handoffs (S170)
- Gao et al., Enabling Large Language Models to Generate Text with Citations, EMNLP 2023 (S177)
The examples identified as illustrative or simulated are design probes, not reported incidents. Vendor specifications do not establish workload performance.