Generated claims arrive with pointers to the sources behind them — inline marks, chips, footnotes, a source panel — so the actor can verify by following rather than by re-researching.
Forms
Recurring forms: inline markers resolving to a source list, hoverable citation chips, a source browser beside the answer, and previews of the retrieved context an answer was grounded in.
Resources & references
- Shape of AI — Citations, References
- aiuxpatterns.com — Show Citations
- AI UX Playground — Citations, Source Browser, Retrieval Context Preview
To-do
Generated content hosts the citations stub; migrate as this matures. The authority-without-verification force ties to the overreliance cluster — worth a shared evidence base with cognitive forcing functions.
Consequences
- claims carry pointers to their sources, so verification collapses from re-research to spot-checking the load-bearing points
- a citation lends authority whether or not anyone follows it: the mark of checkability gets read as the fact of having been checked
- citing constrains generation to the retrievable — what can be said leans toward what can be pointed at
Related patterns
Instantiates
- Annotation — machine-authored annotations anchored to the claims they support
Complements
- Transparent reasoning — the evidence for a claim versus the path that produced it
- Explanation — where it came from versus why the system said it
- Expressed uncertainty — how sure it is versus where it came from
- Provenance marking — who made it versus where it came from
Preceded by
- Reference material — the output is anchored in named material, and can point back to it — the attachment that went in is what a citation can later point out
Enabled by
- Link preview — hover previews let a source be weighed without leaving the claim