The Reference I Almost Didn’t Check

A few days ago, I was reviewing an article my AI agent had drafted. The sources section looked clean: numbered references, proper formatting, plausible titles. One citation pointed to an AWS blog post about a feature I’d never heard of. The title sounded right. The URL structure looked legitimate.

I clicked it. 404.

The blog post didn’t exist. The agent had fabricated a reference that looked exactly like a real AWS publication: correct URL pattern, plausible title, appropriate date. If I hadn’t clicked, it would have gone into a published article with my name on it.