Your Speaker's Statistics Were Invented by a Chatbot

A speaker is presenting striking figures with citations that do not exist. An academic in row three has already checked two of them and is standing up.

Setting: Industry research summit, 600 attendees, sessions livestreamed and recorded. Category: AI & Technology. Pressure level: High.

This page is the individual, citable address for this one situation: https://gatheringarchitecture.com/crisis-sim/scenario/ai-fabricated-facts

The situation

Slide 14 claims a 61% figure attributed to a journal paper. The academic in row three has the journal open on her laptop: no such paper. She catches your eye and gestures at the microphone. Eleven minutes of the session remain, and it is streaming.

First moves and what each one costs

• Signal the moderator to pause, invite the question openly, and ask the speaker for the source on the spot — The speaker cannot produce it and admits the figure came from an AI summary. The room respects the handling more than it punishes the error.
• Let the session finish and handle the sourcing afterwards — She asks anyway, from the floor, without a moderator shaping it. The exchange turns adversarial on the livestream.
• Cut the Q&A to avoid the confrontation — You have protected the speaker and misled 600 people plus everyone who watches the recording. She posts the debunk within the hour.

Preparation notes for this situation

• Ask for sources with slides, not after; one line in the speaker agreement prevents most of this
• Give the moderator standing permission to pause a session for a factual correction
• Correct on the same channel and at the same volume as the error, including in the recording
• Separate the mistake from the person: most fabrication is careless, not dishonest

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