Claim LD09-SL-C32 (v1.0)
Across 27 language models, 155 topics and 12 countries, the epistemic diversity of models’ answers rose substantially over three years, but every model was less diverse than a web-search baseline, larger models were less diverse than smaller ones, and for country-specific topics models’ built-in knowledge reflected English more than local-language knowledge.
Research opportunities this claim motivates
What this claim leaves open for research. Each is a hypothesis about a gap, not a finding.
- Does pooling different models keep restoring diversity as models converge?Larger models gave less diverse answers than smaller ones.
- Does AI writing help pull writers toward Western styles in languages other than English?Models' built-in knowledge reflected English more than local languages across 12 countries.
Provenance and status
- Claim type
- ESTIMATE (as printed: “ESTIMATE”)
- Publication status
- ELIGIBLE (QUALIFIED) (as printed: “ELIGIBLE WITH QUALIFIER”)
- Verification state
- CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY (ABSTRACT_ONLY) (as printed: “CONTENT VERIFIED ABSTRACT”; verified by: UNKNOWN)
- Does not license
- Effects on what people read or believe
- Source (field 6, as printed)
- Wright, Masud, Moore et al., “What and whose knowledge? Measuring epistemic diversity in large language models,” arXiv:2510.04226, accepted to EMNLP 2026
- Source type (field 7)
- PEER_REVIEWED_CONFERENCE_PAPER (as printed: “Peer-reviewed conference paper (accepted)”)
- Institutional position
- Independent academic (University of Copenhagen-led)
- Maturity (claim evidence / publication maturity)
- EMERGING (as printed: “EMERGING”)
- Recorded date
- 2026-10-15
- Currentness / correction
- This is the current version. No correction or concern relation is recorded on its Sources.
Version
Current version v1.0, resolved through the explicit current pointer CLAIM--LD09-SL-C32.
Pinned Sources (field 6, version-specific)
- “Wright, Masud, Moore et al., “What and whose knowledge? Measuring epistemic diversity in large language models,” arXiv:2510.04226, accepted to EMNLP 2026” → SRC-SL-WRIGHT-ET-AL-EPISTEMIC-DIVERSITY-ARXIV-2510-04226--v1.0 — Wright, Masud, Moore et al., “What and whose knowledge? Measuring epistemic diversity in large language models,” arXiv:2510.04226, accepted to EMNLP 2026; class PEER_REVIEWED_CONFERENCE_PAPER (explicit public provenance pin)
All 25 canonical Claim fields (raw values and normalized values)
| # | Canonical field | Canonical value (verbatim) | Normalized (Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CLAIM ID | LD09-SL-C32 | — |
| 2 | PUBLIC-FACING CLAIM | Across 27 language models, 155 topics and 12 countries, the epistemic diversity of models’ answers rose substantially over three years, but every model was less diverse than a web-search baseline, larger models were less diverse than smaller ones, and for country-specific topics models’ built-in knowledge reflected English more than local-language knowledge. | — |
| 3 | CLAIM TYPE | ESTIMATE | base_types: ESTIMATE |
| 4 | RESEARCH STRAND | C — Systems, decisions and shared knowledge | — |
| 5 | MATURITY | EMERGING | states: EMERGING |
| 6 | SOURCE | Wright, Masud, Moore et al., “What and whose knowledge? Measuring epistemic diversity in large language models,” arXiv:2510.04226, accepted to EMNLP 2026 | source_ids: SRC-SL-WRIGHT-ET-AL-EPISTEMIC-DIVERSITY-ARXIV-2510-04226 |
| 7 | SOURCE TYPE | Peer-reviewed conference paper (accepted) | classes: PEER_REVIEWED_CONFERENCE_PAPER |
| 8 | INSTITUTIONAL POSITION | Independent academic (University of Copenhagen-led) | — |
| 9 | SCOPE | Answers of language models on general topics in 12 countries | — |
| 10 | DESIGN | Measurement of the diversity of claims in model answers against a search baseline | — |
| 11 | SAMPLE / DATASET | 1.7 million responses and 70 million claims | — |
| 12 | MODEL / TOOL / VERSION | 27 language models | — |
| 13 | COMPARATOR | A web-search baseline | — |
| 14 | MAIN RESULT | Diversity up over three years; all models below the search baseline; retrieval improves diversity; larger models less diverse; built-in knowledge skewed to English | — |
| 15 | INFERENTIAL TARGET | Whether answer engines narrow the range of knowledge people meet | — |
| 16 | DOES NOT LICENSE | Effects on what people read or believe | — |
| 17 | VERIFICATION STATE | CONTENT VERIFIED ABSTRACT | state: CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY · qualifiers: ABSTRACT_ONLY · verified_by: UNKNOWN |
| 18 | LIMITATIONS | Official abstract only (version 7); the abstract’s wording changed across versions | — |
| 19 | CONTRADICTORY / SUPPORTING SOURCES | Not applicable | — |
| 20 | GEOGRAPHY / LANGUAGE | Multi-country | — |
| 21 | DISTRIBUTIONAL LEDGER | Local-language knowledge is under-represented relative to English | — |
| 22 | R01 / FIELD-MAP LINKS | LD-09, D3 | — |
| 23 | WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS CLAIM? | Studies of what users actually read when they use answer engines | — |
| 24 | PUBLICATION STATUS | ELIGIBLE WITH QUALIFIER | state: ELIGIBLE · qualifiers: QUALIFIED |
| 25 | RECORDED DATE | 2026-10-15 | — |
Field 22 references resolved against Field Map v0.2: LD-09 (LIVING_DEBATE); D3 (DOMAIN)
Cited by Living Debate versions
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 c79721c678719e5ac6ca81023b5219ce2e26da1dedddc0a9952f3124ee8ee7a5.
Repository-authored inputs (not Drive exports)
- SocioLens claim — LD09-SL-C32 v1.0 (v1.0) — written in the SocioLens repository by Project Lead (Claude, AI) on 2026-10-15; no Drive identity exists. Authority: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 15 October 2026 to build the LD-09 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-09 source notes, checked against full texts or official abstracts. Block “ENTRY 32 — LD09-SL-C32” SHA-256
53455ac5cff58b8028778667c7175ed585216892e3efdf15eb5e88d20751b559; fixturefixtures/authored/claims/LD09-SL-C32--v1.0.
Builder decisions (not Drive data)
- VERSION = v1.0 — basis: Claim version taken from the repository-authored claim fixture version (SocioLens claim — LD09-SL-C32 v1.0); the first version of a new Claim of the LD-09 debate
- CURRENT_POINTER = true — basis: repository-authored claim "SocioLens claim — LD09-SL-C32 v1.0" (Project Lead (Claude, AI), 2026-10-15); basis: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 15 October 2026 to build the LD-09 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-09 source notes, checked against full texts or official abstracts
- FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-SL-WRIGHT-ET-AL-EPISTEMIC-DIVERSITY-ARXIV-2510-04226--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 32 — LD09-SL-C32 cites "Wright, Masud, Moore et al., “What and whose knowledge? Measuring epistemic diversity in large language models,” arXiv:2510.04226, accepted to EMNLP 2026"; the only field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's repository-authored ledger block.
- SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-SL-WRIGHT-ET-AL-EPISTEMIC-DIVERSITY-ARXIV-2510-04226--v1.0 — basis: explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion (Amendment v1.2 §6): the pinned field-6 Source record "Wright, Masud, Moore et al., “What and whose knowledge? Measuring epistemic diversity in large language models,” arXiv:2510.04226, accepted to EMNLP 2026".