> What could this do for the average person’s scientific literacy? Or fake news for that matter?

I guess not much better than when the media say "A study proves that X": it doesn't mean anything, it doesn't mean the study has any value, it doesn't mean that there is a scientific consensus. Yet people routinely consider X to be proven (see what happened in the early days of the pandemic).

Add ChatGPT to the mix, and you don't even have the links to the original studies. I can totally imagine it being even worse.