State archives report 50% of patron requests involve AI fakes

State archivists reported that approximately 50% of current patron requests pertain to fake, AI-generated material, according to digital repositories staff cited by scholar Shannon Mattern. The disclosure emerged during a staff meeting where the digital repositories team relayed concerns from state archive colleagues regarding the volume of inquiries about synthetic content. This surge in misinformation-related queries indicates that generative AI outputs are significantly straining public archival resources and complicating historical verification efforts. Archivists must now allocate substantial time to identifying and contextualizing fabricated records instead of facilitating legitimate research. While specific state archives were not named, the anecdotal evidence suggests a systemic challenge for memory institutions nationwide. The phenomenon highlights how AI model hallucinations and deepfakes are creating new administrative burdens for government information services. No official statistics have been published to corroborate the fifty percent estimate beyond this internal communication.