Claim LD10-HQ-C13 (v1.0)
In a preregistered one-week U.S. field experiment, forced Google AI Mode reduced external click-through by 18.8 percentage points and lowered trust in information on Google.
Provenance and status
- Claim type
- ESTIMATE (as printed: “ESTIMATE”)
- Publication status
- ELIGIBLE (PREPRINT) (as printed: “ELIGIBLE WITH PREPRINT QUALIFIER”)
- Verification state
- CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY (PREPRINT) (as printed: “CONTENT VERIFIED PREPRINT”; verified by: UNKNOWN)
- Does not license
- Long-run organic adoption effect or unconditional +8.8pp removal effect
- Source (field 6, as printed)
- Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352
- Source type (field 7)
- PREPRINT (as printed: “Preprint”)
- Institutional position
- Independent academic / NSF-funded
- Maturity (claim evidence / publication maturity)
- EMERGING (as printed: “EMERGING”)
- Recorded date
- 2026-09-25
- Currentness / correction
- This is the current version. No correction or concern relation is recorded on its Sources.
Version
Pinned version v1.0 (entry LD10-HQ-C13--v1.0) — this page never floats to newer evidence.
This pinned version is also the current version.
Pinned Sources (field 6, version-specific)
- “Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352” → SRC-LD10-WANG-ARXIV-2608-18352--v1.0 — Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352; class PREPRINT (explicit public provenance pin)
Read the originals
- SRC-LD10-WANG-ARXIV-2608-18352: open the original
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 | LD10-HQ-C13 | — |
| 2 | PUBLIC-FACING CLAIM | In a preregistered one-week U.S. field experiment, forced Google AI Mode reduced external click-through by 18.8 percentage points and lowered trust in information on Google. | — |
| 3 | CLAIM TYPE | ESTIMATE | base_types: ESTIMATE |
| 4 | RESEARCH STRAND | C/E — Intermediation & trust | — |
| 5 | MATURITY | EMERGING | states: EMERGING |
| 6 | SOURCE | Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352 | source_ids: SRC-LD10-WANG-ARXIV-2608-18352 |
| 7 | SOURCE TYPE | Preprint | classes: PREPRINT |
| 8 | INSTITUTIONAL POSITION | Independent academic / NSF-funded | — |
| 9 | SCOPE | U.S. Chrome/Google users; March 2026; 7 days | — |
| 10 | DESIGN | Preregistered field RCT | — |
| 11 | SAMPLE / DATASET | N=1,100 behavioural; 956 survey | — |
| 12 | MODEL / TOOL / VERSION | Google AI Mode / AI Overviews | — |
| 13 | COMPARATOR | Unmodified Google Search | — |
| 14 | MAIN RESULT | AI Mode −18.8pp click-through [−22.2,−15.3]; trust −0.34/7; No-AI +8.8pp LATE while ITT nonsignificant | — |
| 15 | INFERENTIAL TARGET | Causal effect of AI-first search interface | — |
| 16 | DOES NOT LICENSE | Long-run organic adoption effect or unconditional +8.8pp removal effect | — |
| 17 | VERIFICATION STATE | CONTENT VERIFIED PREPRINT | state: CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY · qualifiers: PREPRINT · verified_by: UNKNOWN |
| 18 | LIMITATIONS | Forced assignment; short horizon; compliance decay in removal arm | — |
| 19 | CONTRADICTORY / SUPPORTING SOURCES | C12 and C14 consistent on referral mechanism | — |
| 20 | GEOGRAPHY / LANGUAGE | US / English | — |
| 21 | DISTRIBUTIONAL LEDGER | News, Reddit and Wikipedia lost clicks in the experiment | — |
| 22 | R01 / FIELD-MAP LINKS | D7, D3, L-C, R-1 | — |
| 23 | WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS CLAIM? | Longer natural-adoption or non-U.S. field studies | — |
| 24 | PUBLICATION STATUS | ELIGIBLE WITH PREPRINT QUALIFIER | state: ELIGIBLE · qualifiers: PREPRINT |
| 25 | RECORDED DATE | 2026-09-25 | — |
Field 22 references resolved against Field Map v0.2: D7 (DOMAIN); D3 (DOMAIN); L-C (LENS); R-1 (LENS)
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 265a1beb0c89a65f91b6951d35ed088e25b9fe19e314658a4fcacfc41691b17a.
Frozen Drive-derived inputs
- R07 — LD-10 Canonical Claim Ledger v1.0 — LOCKED (v1.0) — Drive ID
1f9tgGnqv80_UyhW0kCgcnTgWNPlx-DYM; revision: NOT_EXPOSED_BY_DRIVE_TEXT_EXPORT; Drive modified ; block “ENTRY 13 — LD10-HQ-C13 ” SHA-256560a8ef9318bd6c934d4eecd4e0dc56412870f51123075a5432f9c0b8ddec357; SocioLens — Programme Status & Authority Register v0.6 status “CURRENT.”; frozen fixturefixtures/frozen/r07-ld10-claim-ledger-v1.0-canonical.
Builder decisions (not Drive data)
- VERSION = v1.0 — basis: Claim version taken from the canonical ledger artifact version (R07 — LD-10 Canonical Claim Ledger v1.0); Implementation Architecture Selection §5 logical_id/version convention.
- CURRENT_POINTER = true — basis: SocioLens — Programme Status & Authority Register v0.6 status for "R07 — LD-10 Canonical Claim Ledger v1.0 — LOCKED": "CURRENT."
- FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD10-WANG-ARXIV-2608-18352--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 13 — LD10-HQ-C13 cites "Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352"; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block (fixtures/frozen/r07-ld10-claim-ledger-v1.0-canonical); Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #53 Source inventory, factory-hq decision HQ-ESC-sociolens-ld10-t5-20261011T050405Z-01 ruling 3 inventory S7): R07 Batch 02 lines 45, 47; ledger C13 fields 6/7/8; KEY EVIDENCE line 935 of the locked LD-10 Living Debate.
- SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD10-WANG-ARXIV-2608-18352--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 "Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352"; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #53 Source inventory, factory-hq decision HQ-ESC-sociolens-ld10-t5-20261011T050405Z-01 ruling 3 inventory S7): R07 Batch 02 lines 45, 47; ledger C13 fields 6/7/8; KEY EVIDENCE line 935 of the locked LD-10 Living Debate.