Thamus

As AI-generated answers increasingly complement, and in some cases displace, traditional search, large language models (LLMs) from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are rapidly becoming primary knowledge intermediaries. Unlike web search, which presents a list of sources for users to evaluate, LLMs produce a single authoritative-sounding answer drawn from sources that may be cited, partially attributed, or entirely invisible. Diverse perspectives and productive uncertainty collapse into a single voice.

As users offload cognitive work to these systems and accept synthesized answers as authoritative, what models say — and what they omit — shapes public understanding. The emerging practice of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), sometimes called “AI SEO,” adds another layer: corporate actors, political campaigns, and influence operations are now actively competing to shape what models retrieve and present as knowledge.

Named after King Thamus in Plato’s Phaedrus — who warned that writing would create the appearance of wisdom without understanding — the Thamus Observatory is a longitudinal auditing project that systematically monitors how AI language models represent contested topics over time. Based at the University of Ottawa and funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the project draws on methods from political economy of communication, information science, and bibliometrics to study how AI systems mediate knowledge.

The project operates in two distinct capacities. As an observatory, it tracks how models mediate issues — from climate and energy policy to geopolitical conflicts — across major providers, enabling researchers to compare how different systems present the same topic, which sources they amplify or suppress, and how those representations shift over time. As a platform, it provides scalable, topic-agnostic infrastructure for any researcher to collect and analyze LLM outputs across different time periods and search configurations.

Inquiries regarding research collaboration or observatory access can be sent to: patrick.mccurdy [at] uottawa [dot] ca.