AI-mediated responding is measurable in current online research, but self-reported assistance, overt outsourcing, AI-test failure and autonomous-agent detection are different estimands and cannot be pooled into one prevalence rate.

SocioLens project,

Claim LD07-HQ-C10 (v1.0)

Research opportunities this claim motivates

What this claim leaves open for research. Each is a hypothesis about a gap, not a finding.

How much AI-assisted or agent responding reaches probability panels?Existing prevalence estimates measure different pathways (assistance, outsourcing, AI-test failure, agents) and cannot be pooled into one rate; none of them comes from a probability panel.

Provenance and status

Claim type: Interpretation
Publication status: Eligible for publication
Verification state: Checked against the primary source. Who checked this claim is not recorded for it; claim checks so far were AI-led, and no person has checked claims against their sources.
Does not license: “AI contamination rate = X%”; autonomous-agent prevalence from assistance/self-report
Limitations: Detector error; shifting norms; convenience platforms; sparse probability-panel evidence
Source (as cited): Westwood & Frederick 2026; Asher et al. 2026; Zhang et al. 2025; Veselovsky et al.; Chen et al. 2026; Gordon et al. 2026; Xu & Malkin 2026; Lin 2026
Source type: Peer-reviewed journal article, Preprint (recorded as “Peer-reviewed studies + preprints + synthesis”)
Institutional position: Mixed; Gordon includes Prolific personnel and requires position metadata
Maturity of the evidence: Emerging evidence (multi study)
Recorded date: 25 September 2026
Currentness / correction: This is the current version. No correction or concern is recorded on its sources.

Sources this version cites

Version

This is the current version, v1.0. Earlier versions stay available, and their records never change.

Versions: v1.0 · current

Raw record: every recorded field, with its coded values

All 25 canonical Claim fields, verbatim, with the coded values derived from them. The plain-language labels above are read from these.

Claim type (coded): INTERPRETATION (as printed: “INTERPRETATION grounded in multiple ESTIMATES”)
Publication status (coded): ELIGIBLE (as printed: “ELIGIBLE”)
Verification state (coded): CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY
Source type (coded): PEER_REVIEWED_JOURNAL_ARTICLE, PREPRINT
Maturity (coded): EMERGING (MULTI_STUDY)

#	Canonical field	Canonical value (verbatim)	Normalized (Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2)
1	CLAIM ID	LD07-HQ-C10	—
2	PUBLIC-FACING CLAIM	AI-mediated responding is measurable in current online research, but self-reported assistance, overt outsourcing, AI-test failure and autonomous-agent detection are different estimands and cannot be pooled into one prevalence rate.	—
3	CLAIM TYPE	INTERPRETATION grounded in multiple ESTIMATES	base_types: INTERPRETATION
4	RESEARCH STRAND	D	—
5	MATURITY	EMERGING / MULTI-STUDY	states: EMERGING · qualifiers: MULTI_STUDY
6	SOURCE	Westwood & Frederick 2026; Asher et al. 2026; Zhang et al. 2025; Veselovsky et al.; Chen et al. 2026; Gordon et al. 2026; Xu & Malkin 2026; Lin 2026	source_ids: SRC-LD07-WESTWOOD-FREDERICK-REPLY-2026, SRC-LD07-ASHER-KEYSTROKE-2026, SRC-LD07-ZHANG-HOMOGENIZATION-2025, SRC-LD07-VESELOVSKY-CROWDWORK-2025, SRC-LD07-CHEN-AI-AGENT-RESPONDING-2026, SRC-LD07-GORDON-PREVALENCE-2026, SRC-LD07-XU-MALKIN-PROMPTS-2026, SRC-LD07-LIN-TAXONOMY-2026
7	SOURCE TYPE	Peer-reviewed studies + preprints + synthesis	classes: PEER_REVIEWED_JOURNAL_ARTICLE, PREPRINT
8	INSTITUTIONAL POSITION	Mixed; Gordon includes Prolific personnel and requires position metadata	—
9	SCOPE	Prolific, MTurk and multiple online recruitment providers; primarily text-rich tasks	—
10	DESIGN	Self-report, keystroke logging, detector audits, cross-platform field tests	—
11	SAMPLE / DATASET	Multiple studies; N ranges from 250 to 5,200+, plus one Prolific n=2,898 audit	—
12	MODEL / TOOL / VERSION	Various; many estimates concern human assistance rather than one model	—
13	COMPARATOR	Human behavior / verified-human false-positive samples / platform detectors	—
14	MAIN RESULT	Non-zero AI mediation across multiple settings; estimates vary sharply because phenomena/platforms/detectors differ	—
15	INFERENTIAL TARGET	Prevalence of specified contamination pathway	—
16	DOES NOT LICENSE	“AI contamination rate = X%”; autonomous-agent prevalence from assistance/self-report	—
17	VERIFICATION STATE	CLEARED	state: CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY · verified_by: UNKNOWN
18	LIMITATIONS	Detector error; shifting norms; convenience platforms; sparse probability-panel evidence	—
19	CONTRADICTORY / SUPPORTING SOURCES	Lin taxonomy reconciles apparent conflicts	—
20	GEOGRAPHY / LANGUAGE	Mainly US/UK-centered online platforms / English	—
21	DISTRIBUTIONAL LEDGER	Strong verification may alter who can enter samples; selection/access trade-offs	—
22	R01 / FIELD-MAP LINKS	T1, T7, D9	—
23	WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS CLAIM?	Platform-independent validated detector and probability-panel audits	—
24	PUBLICATION STATUS	ELIGIBLE	state: ELIGIBLE
25	RECORDED DATE	2026-09-25	—

Field 22 references resolved against Field Map v0.2: T1 (TENSION); T7 (TENSION); D9 (DOMAIN)

The sources as recorded, with their record IDs and coded source types:

Pinned Sources (field 6, version-specific)

“Westwood & Frederick 2026” → Westwood & Frederick (2026), “Reply to Van der Stigchel…” (SRC-LD07-WESTWOOD-FREDERICK-REPLY-2026--v1.0) — Westwood & Frederick, “Reply to Van der Stigchel et al.: Empirical evidence that AI survey contamination is real and substantial,” PNAS 123(8):e2537420123 (2026); class PEER_REVIEWED_JOURNAL_ARTICLE (explicit public provenance pin)
“Asher et al. 2026” → Asher et al. (2026), “Chatbots Are Undermining…” (SRC-LD07-ASHER-KEYSTROKE-2026--v1.0) — Asher, Gold, Chen & Carvalho, “Chatbots Are Undermining Crowdsourced Research in the Behavioral Sciences,” AMPPS 9(1) (2026); class PEER_REVIEWED_JOURNAL_ARTICLE (explicit public provenance pin)
“Zhang et al. 2025” → Zhang et al. (2025), “Generative AI Meets Open-Ended…” (SRC-LD07-ZHANG-HOMOGENIZATION-2025--v1.0) — Zhang, Xu & Alvero, “Generative AI Meets Open-Ended Survey Responses,” Sociological Methods & Research 54(3):1197–1242 (2025); class PEER_REVIEWED_JOURNAL_ARTICLE (explicit public provenance pin)
“Veselovsky et al.” → Veselovsky et al. (2025), “Prevalence and prevention of…” (SRC-LD07-VESELOVSKY-CROWDWORK-2025--v1.0) — Veselovsky, Horta Ribeiro, Cozzolino, Gordon, Rothschild & West, “Prevalence and prevention of large language model use in crowd work,” CACM 2025; class PEER_REVIEWED_JOURNAL_ARTICLE (explicit public provenance pin)
“Chen et al. 2026” → Chen et al. (2026), “Estimating the threat of AI-agent…” (SRC-LD07-CHEN-AI-AGENT-RESPONDING-2026--v1.0) — Chen, Urminsky et al., “Estimating the threat of AI-agent responding across online survey platforms,” PsyArXiv 2026; class PREPRINT (explicit public provenance pin)
“Gordon et al. 2026” → Gordon et al. (2026), “AI Agent Prevalence and Data…” (SRC-LD07-GORDON-PREVALENCE-2026--v1.0) — Gordon et al., “AI Agent Prevalence and Data Quality Across Multiple Online Sample Providers,” PsyArXiv 2026; class PREPRINT (explicit public provenance pin)
“Xu & Malkin 2026” → Xu & Malkin, “A Penny for Your Prompts: Experiments…” (SRC-LD07-XU-MALKIN-PROMPTS-2026--v1.0) — Xu & Malkin, “A Penny for Your Prompts: Experiments Detecting and Mitigating LLM Usage by Survey Respondents,” arXiv:2607.00403; class PREPRINT (explicit public provenance pin)
“Lin 2026” → Lin (2026), “Artificial-Intelligence-Mediated…” (SRC-LD07-LIN-TAXONOMY-2026--v1.0) — Lin, “Artificial-Intelligence-Mediated Contamination in Online Research: Taxonomy, Risk Gradient, and Recommendations,” AMPPS 9(3) (2026); class PEER_REVIEWED_JOURNAL_ARTICLE (explicit public provenance pin)

Cited by Living Debate versions

AI in the research apparatus (v0.1) LD-07
AI in the research apparatus (v0.2) LD-07

Cite this page

SocioLens project. (2026, September 25). AI-mediated responding is measurable in current online research, but self-reported assistance, overt outsourcing, AI-test failure and autonomous-agent detection are different estimands and cannot be pooled into one prevalence rate [Claim LD07-HQ-C10, version v1.0]. SocioLens. https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld07-hq-c10/v1.0/

@misc{sociolens_ld07_hq_c10_v1_0,
  author = {{SocioLens project}},
  title = {AI-mediated responding is measurable in current online research, but self-reported assistance, overt outsourcing, AI-test failure and autonomous-agent detection are different estimands and cannot be pooled into one prevalence rate.},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-09-25},
  howpublished = {\url{https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld07-hq-c10/v1.0/}},
  note = {Claim LD07-HQ-C10, version v1.0}
}

The link points to this version, whose record never changes. For a finding, cite the original study as well: SocioLens summarizes research and does not replace it.

Research-of-record provenance

Materialized by sociolens-materializer 0.6.0 at 2026-09-28T20:00:00.000Z; normalization contract SocioLens — Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2 — Pre-Spike Materialization Contract (v1.0.2). Content seal SHA-256 224923964566c7fdc3087ae6455f20d36353b9312076ae0a5b414bb62de7b78c.

Frozen Drive-derived inputs

R03 — LD-07 Canonical Claim Ledger v1.0 — LOCKED (v1.0) — Drive ID 1xVz_LrQAA8EA1tPhVWIrDgOUU3Zidlg9; revision: NOT_EXPOSED_BY_DRIVE_TEXT_EXPORT; Drive modified 2026-09-29T04:31:14.120Z; block “ENTRY 10 — LD07-HQ-C10” SHA-256 0866c1cfa29d0cc54b4245705d05bfcc4d60e6046e3446b4724a7f7bab811241; SocioLens — Programme Status & Authority Register v0.6 status “CURRENT.”; frozen fixture fixtures/frozen/r03-ld07-claim-ledger-v1.0-canonical.

Builder decisions (not Drive data)

VERSION = v1.0 — basis: Claim version taken from the canonical ledger artifact version (R03 — LD-07 Canonical Claim Ledger v1.0); Implementation Architecture Selection §5
CURRENT_POINTER = true — basis: SocioLens — Programme Status & Authority Register v0.6 status for "R03 — LD-07 Canonical Claim Ledger v1.0 — LOCKED": "CURRENT."
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD07-WESTWOOD-FREDERICK-REPLY-2026--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 10 — LD07-HQ-C10 cites "Westwood & Frederick 2026"; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §2 + §17; ledger C10; KEY EVIDENCE ("Peer reviewed letter").
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD07-ASHER-KEYSTROKE-2026--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 10 — LD07-HQ-C10 cites "Asher et al. 2026"; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §3 + §17; ledger C10; KEY EVIDENCE.
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD07-ZHANG-HOMOGENIZATION-2025--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 10 — LD07-HQ-C10 cites "Zhang et al. 2025"; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §4 + §17; ledger C10; KEY EVIDENCE.
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD07-VESELOVSKY-CROWDWORK-2025--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 10 — LD07-HQ-C10 cites "Veselovsky et al."; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §5 + §17.
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD07-CHEN-AI-AGENT-RESPONDING-2026--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 10 — LD07-HQ-C10 cites "Chen et al. 2026"; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §6 + §17; ledger C10.
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD07-GORDON-PREVALENCE-2026--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 10 — LD07-HQ-C10 cites "Gordon et al. 2026"; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §7 + §17 (Prolific personnel among authors is recorded only in claim field 8).
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD07-XU-MALKIN-PROMPTS-2026--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 10 — LD07-HQ-C10 cites "Xu & Malkin 2026"; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §8 + §17; ledger C10.
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD07-LIN-TAXONOMY-2026--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 10 — LD07-HQ-C10 cites "Lin 2026"; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §9 + §17; ledger C10; KEY EVIDENCE.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD07-WESTWOOD-FREDERICK-REPLY-2026--v1.0 — basis: Issue #5 proof rendering (Architecture Proof Protocol v0.1 AP-08 / Amendment v1.2 §6): explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion — the pinned field-6 Source record "Westwood & Frederick 2026"; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §2 + §17; ledger C10; KEY EVIDENCE ("Peer reviewed letter").
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD07-ASHER-KEYSTROKE-2026--v1.0 — basis: Issue #5 proof rendering (Architecture Proof Protocol v0.1 AP-08 / Amendment v1.2 §6): explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion — the pinned field-6 Source record "Asher et al. 2026"; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §3 + §17; ledger C10; KEY EVIDENCE.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD07-ZHANG-HOMOGENIZATION-2025--v1.0 — basis: Issue #5 proof rendering (Architecture Proof Protocol v0.1 AP-08 / Amendment v1.2 §6): explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion — the pinned field-6 Source record "Zhang et al. 2025"; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §4 + §17; ledger C10; KEY EVIDENCE.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD07-VESELOVSKY-CROWDWORK-2025--v1.0 — basis: Issue #5 proof rendering (Architecture Proof Protocol v0.1 AP-08 / Amendment v1.2 §6): explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion — the pinned field-6 Source record "Veselovsky et al."; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §5 + §17.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD07-CHEN-AI-AGENT-RESPONDING-2026--v1.0 — basis: Issue #5 proof rendering (Architecture Proof Protocol v0.1 AP-08 / Amendment v1.2 §6): explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion — the pinned field-6 Source record "Chen et al. 2026"; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §6 + §17; ledger C10.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD07-GORDON-PREVALENCE-2026--v1.0 — basis: Issue #5 proof rendering (Architecture Proof Protocol v0.1 AP-08 / Amendment v1.2 §6): explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion — the pinned field-6 Source record "Gordon et al. 2026"; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §7 + §17 (Prolific personnel among authors is recorded only in claim field 8).
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD07-XU-MALKIN-PROMPTS-2026--v1.0 — basis: Issue #5 proof rendering (Architecture Proof Protocol v0.1 AP-08 / Amendment v1.2 §6): explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion — the pinned field-6 Source record "Xu & Malkin 2026"; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §8 + §17; ledger C10.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD07-LIN-TAXONOMY-2026--v1.0 — basis: Issue #5 proof rendering (Architecture Proof Protocol v0.1 AP-08 / Amendment v1.2 §6): explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion — the pinned field-6 Source record "Lin 2026"; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #39 Source inventory): Batch 03 §9 + §17; ledger C10; KEY EVIDENCE.