19 sources behind this chapter. Each one carries a note on what it is doing in the argument.
Used for Klarna restoring a human customer-service option after its cost-led AI push went too far.
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Daly, Charles. 'Klarna Slows AI-Driven Job Cuts With Call for Real People.' Bloomberg, 8 May 2025.
Used for developer AI-tool adoption and falling trust in AI output.
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Stack Overflow. '2025 Developer Survey.' 2025.
Used for the reputational cost of AI-generated workslop: recipients of workslop trusted senders less and rated them as less creative, capable and reliable.
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Niederhoffer, Kate, Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, Angela Lee, Alex Liebscher, Kristina Rapuano, and Jeffrey T. Hancock. 'AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity.' Harvard Business Review, 22 September 2025, updated 25 September 2025. HBR article summarising research by BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab.
Used for the provenance-field context behind proof of digital origin and the shift away from assuming digital artefacts are authentic by default.
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Parsons, Andy. 'The State of Content Authenticity in 2026.' Content Authenticity Initiative, 18 January 2026.
Used for the Content Credentials scale claim and provenance infrastructure adoption.
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Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity. 'The C2PA Launches Content Credentials 2.3 and Celebrates 5 Years of Impact Across the Digital Ecosystem.' 9 February 2026.
Used for Canon’s C2PA-compliant image-authenticity system for news organisations and provenance at capture.
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Canon Inc. and Canon Europe Ltd. 'Canon Introduces C2PA-Compliant Authenticity Imaging System for News Organizations.' Canon Global, 11 May 2026.
Used for stated willingness to pay more for transparent AI data use; company-commissioned survey conducted by Sapio Research.
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Usercentrics. State of Digital Trust 2026. June 2026. Research commissioned by Usercentrics and conducted by Sapio Research.
Used for the Relaxolotl / “designed in Rhode Island, by people” example and the wider human-made premium label question.
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Marketplace Tech. 'Is “made by humans” the new premium label?' 13 April 2026.
Used for the AI-authorship effect and consumer moral disgust when people sense AI-generated marketing was passed off without a person behind it.
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Kirk, Colleen P., and Julian Givi. 'The AI-authorship effect: Understanding authenticity, moral disgust, and consumer responses to AI-generated marketing communications.' Journal of Business Research 186 (January 2025): 114984. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114984.
Used as a conceptual framework for human authorship, relational presence and accountability. Preprint; not peer reviewed.
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McGurk, Erin, and David Khachaturov. 'Human-Provenance Verification should Be Treated as Labor Infrastructure in AI-Saturated Markets.' Preprint, arXiv:2605.03210v1, 4 May 2026. Not peer reviewed.
Used for Article 50 transparency and machine-readable disclosure obligations for certain AI-generated or manipulated content.
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European Union. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Artificial Intelligence Act), Article 50, applicable from 2 August 2026.
Opening source. Used for the SHRM survey of 14,000-plus American workers and the 62.7 percent customer-preference barrier to automation.
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SHRM. 'Automation, AI, and Job Displacement Risk in U.S. Employment.' 2026 Edition, 3 June 2026.