AI Ventriloquism Erodes Authorial Trust

Using LLMs to write or 'smooth' copy can make named authors into mouthpieces for invisible models, shifting responsibility from human judgment to opaque systems. Where institutions apply accountability unevenly, this behaviour corrodes trust in both individual writers and the outlets that publish them. — If unchecked, routine AI‑assisted writing plus inconsistent enforcement will hollow the credibility of journalism and scholarship and shift debates from substance to provenance policing.