The larger unresolved question here is that, in the research world, failures of clarity and (undetected) errors in messaging have potentially HUGE consequences. Best-case scenario is that these scholars' articles and books simply get rejected by journals and publishers, so they struggle to build up the publications on their CVs and their careers suffer. Worst-case — and very plausible scenario — is that shoddy scholarship does get published if the mistakes look subtle enough. Then those mistakes become "knowledge," and we're all fucked.

So yes, precisely: mass swaths don't know or care about the difference. Those people will opt for AI simply because it's cheaper. And the societal impacts of this may well be catastrophic.