Researching into the void

Who doesn’t love a bit of research?

Academic analysis has exploded in the last decade, with the number of peer-reviewed articles published rising by 180% in just ten years. In 2024, around 3 million scientific articles were published across over 30,000 active scholarly journals. That’s a lot of footnotes. 

Some of it, of course, is so niche the average person couldn’t begin to understand, or - if we’re honest - care. Some of it is groundbreaking.

But much of it doesn’t so much challenge what we know, but reinforce what already seems self-evident. We’ve already had some great examples of this in the year to date. 

Apparently, just thinking about tequila, whiskey or wine shifts your mindset, presumably from “I’ve got a big day tomorrow” to “the pub is a great idea”. Researchers have also found that a few weeks of X’s algorithm can make you more right‑wing, with the only surprise there that it took a few weeks. 

There’s more. New research found an apple a day keeps tantrums away, with  irritability in teens can be reduced by daily doses of vitamins and minerals. Meanwhile, ACMA shocked precisely no one with research that showed streaming remains Australia’s favourite way to watch or listen to content. A ‘florals for spring’ moment. 

None of this is controversial, yet it’s at risk of not being believed. 

Australia remains in the top five nations globally for trust in scientists, and yet trust is still a major issue. A massive 43% of young Aussies, for example, now believe that people who have "done their own research" are just as knowledgeable about health matters as doctors. A third of people say they don’t trust universities, compared to 9 out of 10 who trusted them 20 years ago.

Both our capacity and demand for research are increasing, and LLMs provide a new way of serving it up to a broader audience. But without trust in those conducting, funding, or communicating it, we risk it going to waste.