With regard to confabulating (hallucinating) sources, or anything else, it is worth noting this is a first class training requirement imposed on models. Not models simply picking up the habit from humans.

When training a student, normally we expect a lack of knowledge early, and reward self-awareness, self-evaluation and self-disclosure of that.

But the very first epoch of a model training run, when the model has all the ignorance of a dropped plate of spaghetti, we optimize the network to respond to information, as anything from a typical human to an expert, without any base of understanding.

So the training practice for models is inherently extreme enforced “fake it until you make it”, to a degree far beyond any human context or culture.

(Regardless, humans need to verify, not to mention read, the sources they site. But it will be nice when models can be trusted to accurately access what they know/don’t-know too.)