Traceable Scholarship: Page Anchors and Ariadne's Thread for Humanistic Inquiry in the Age of Generative AI

Abstract

Generative AI lets large language models produce scholarly-looking text within seconds, yet fluency does not equal valid explanation. The deepest risk is not factual error alone but the appearance that an explanation is already established without clear sources, page numbers, editions, or evidence. We liken the page anchor to Ariadne's thread: within the labyrinth of generative fluency, it is the thread that leads the scholar back to the source. This paper proposes Traceable Scholarship as the minimum normative condition for AI-assisted humanistic research, situating it across the three revolutions of knowledge infrastructure: print, digital, and generative AI. We introduce page anchors, dual page numbers, citation-first generation, NO_EVIDENCE, human verification, four-level compliance, and Scope Contract, and present AIH-Infra as a three-layer reference implementation: Contexture (document structuring), Open WebUI AIH-Infra (traceable knowledge base), and AIH-Infra MCP Server (agent gateway). A case study on a 29-volume Kant Akademie-Ausgabe knowledge base illustrates how traceability supports retrieval correction, evidence grading, and judgment downgrading. Traceability is not a software feature; it is the condition under which humanistic research can remain public and refutable in the age of generative AI.