Generating the Past: How Artificial Intelligence Summaries of Historical Events Affect Knowledge

Daniel Karell, Matthew Shu, Thomas Davidson, Keitaro Okura, Department of Sociology and Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Department of Statistics and Data Science, Yale University, New Haven, Department of Sociology, Yale University, New Haven, Department of Sociology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Brunswick

Social Science Computer Review

Published online on December 24, 2025

Abstract

Social Science Computer Review, Ahead of Print.
Many people now use AI chatbots to obtain summaries of complex topics, yet we know little about how this affects knowledge acquisition, including how the effects might vary across different groups of people. We conducted two experiments comparing how well ...