Epistemic compression in large language model explanations of the gut–liver axis

LLM explanations of the gut-liver axis are susceptible to epistemic compression driven by narrative fluency rather than factual error. Readability does not reliably indicate epistemic robustness in decision-adjacent contexts. These findings support shifting evaluation and governance from platform comparison toward concept-conditioned requirement engineering that enforces provenance, calibrated uncertainty, and explicit separation of correlation, mechanism, and actionability as generative outputs approach clinical relevance.

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Publication Details

Journal
Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology
Published
2026-02-13
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2026.1773593
Primary Topic
Gut microbiota and health
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Epistemic compression in large language model explanations of the gut–liver axis

Meng Sun, Yilin Che, Jie Chen, Huan Zhou et al.
Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology
Gut microbiota and health
article

Epistemic compression in large language model explanations of the gut–liver axis

Meng Sun, Yilin Che, Jie Chen, Huan Zhou, Dan Zang
article en

Abstract

LLM explanations of the gut-liver axis are susceptible to epistemic compression driven by narrative fluency rather than factual error. Readability does not reliably indicate epistemic robustness in decision-adjacent contexts. These findings support shifting evaluation and governance from platform comparison toward concept-conditioned requirement engineering that enforces provenance, calibrated uncertainty, and explicit separation of correlation, mechanism, and actionability as generative outputs approach clinical relevance.

Frontiers in Cellular and Infection MicrobiologyVol. 16
Dalian Medical University (CN), Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Quality Education
Openalex Percentile: Top 57%
Gut microbiota and health
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