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Maybe online models can, but local has no access to the internet so it can't. However, it's likely generating a response that is predictable that can cite a source, but it could totally make that up. Hopefully people would double check it to make sure it actually is and says what it's claiming, but we both know most won't. Citing a source is just a way to make it look intelligent while it still generates bullshit.
You're saying this like they're equal. People put thought into it. LLMs do not. Yes, con men exist. However, not everyone is a con man. You can follow authors who are known to be accurate. You can do the same with LLMs. The problem is consistency. A con man will always be a con man. With an LLM you have no way to know if it's bullshitting this time or not, so you should always assume it's bullshit. In which case, what's the point? However, most people assume it's always honest, because that's what the marketing leads you to believe
And the people who don't know that you should check LLMs for hallucinations/errors (despite the fact that the press has been screaming that for a year) are definitely self-hosting their own, right? I've done it, it's not hard, but it's certainly not trivial either, and most of these folks would just go 'lol what's a docker?' and stop there. So we're advocating guard-rails for people in a use-case they would never find themselves in.
Not as if they're equal, but as if they're both unreliable and should be checked against multiple sources, which is what I've been advocating for since the beginning of this conversation.
But you don't know a con man is a con man until you've read his book and put some of his ideas in practice and discovered that they're bullshit, same as with an LLM. See also: check against multiple sources.