In 2026, LLMs are highly intelligent. In many ways, they even surpass human intelligence and ability. Dismissing them as "bullshit generators" is utterly unserious, and shows that one does not want to deal with the reality of the situation.
I don't see anyone excusing hallucinated citations. I see people arguing that this is an overreaction by the arXiv. AI is going to become a major part of research, including in writing papers. It would be better if people would freak out a little less about that fact.