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Academic publishing giant Wiley has now introduced a "paper mill detection service" to detect AI misuse — which itself is powered by AI.

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Agence France-Presse

<p>PARIS — An infographic of a rat with a preposterously large penis. Another showing human legs with way too many bones. An introduction that starts: &quot;Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic&quot;.</p><p>These are a few of the most egregious examples of artificial intelligence that have recently made their way into scientific journals, shining a light on the wave of AI-generated text and images washing over the academic publishing industry.</p><p>Several experts who track down problems in studies told AFP that the rise of AI has turbocharged the existing problems in the multi-billion-dollar sector.</p><p>All the experts emphasized that AI programs such as ChatGPT can be a helpful tool for writing or translating papers — if thoroughly checked and disclosed.</p><p>But that was not the case for several recent cases that somehow snuck past peer review.</p><p>Earlier this year, a clearly AI-generated graphic of a rat with impossibly huge genitals was shared widely on social media.</p><p>It was published in a journal of academic giant Frontiers, which later retracted the study.</p><p>Another study was retracted last month for an AI graphic showing legs with odd multi-jointed bones that resembled hands.</p><p>While these examples were images, it is thought to be ChatGPT, a chatbot launched in November 2022, that has most changed how the world&#x27;s researchers present their findings.</p><p>A study published by Elsevier went viral in March for its introduction, which was clearly a ChatGPT prompt that read: &quot;Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic&quot;.</p><p>Such embarrassing examples are rare and would be unlikely to make it through the peer review process at the most prestigious journals, several experts told AFP.</p><div><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/2024/5/17/how-high-is-the-interest-in-ai-in-the-philippines-google-answers-1939">RELATED: How high is the interest in AI in the Philippines? Google answers</a></div><div><strong>Tilting at paper mills</strong></div><p>It is not always so easy to spot the use of AI. But one clue is that ChatGPT tends to favor certain words.</p><p>Andrew Gray, a librarian at University College London, trawled through millions of papers searching for the overuse of words such as meticulous, intricate or commendable.</p><p>He determined that at least 60,000 papers involved the use of AI in 2023 — over one percent of the annual total.</p><p>&quot;For 2024 we are going to see very significantly increased numbers,&quot; Gray told AFP.</p><p>Meanwhile, more than 13,000 papers were retracted last year, by far the most in history, according to the US-based group Retraction Watch.</p><p>AI has allowed the bad actors in scientific publishing and academia to &quot;industrialise the overflow&quot; of &quot;junk&quot; papers, Retraction Watch co-founder Ivan Oransky told AFP.</p><p>Such bad actors include what are known as paper mills.</p><p>These &quot;scammers&quot; sell authorship to researchers, pumping out vast amounts of very poor quality, plagiarized or fake papers, said Elisabeth Bik, a Dutch researcher who detects scientific image manipulation.</p><p>Two percent of all studies are thought to be published by paper mills, but the rate is &quot;exploding&quot; as AI opens the floodgates, Bik told AFP.</p><p>This problem was highlighted when academic publishing giant Wiley purchased troubled publisher Hindawi in 2021.</p><p>Since then, the US firm has retracted more than 11,300 papers related to special issues of Hindawi, a Wiley spokesperson told AFP.</p><p>Wiley has now introduced a &quot;paper mill detection service&quot; to detect AI misuse — which itself is powered by AI.</p><div><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/01/26/24/us-regulator-probes-ai-investments-by-tech-giants">READ: US regulator probes AI investments by tech giants</a></div><div><strong>&#x27;Vicious cycle&#x27;</strong></div><p>Oransky emphasized that the problem was not just paper mills, but a broader academic culture which pushes researchers to &quot;publish or perish&quot;.</p><p>&quot;Publishers have created 30 to 40 percent profit margins and billions of dollars in profit by creating these systems that demand volume,&quot; he said.</p><p>The insatiable demand for ever-more papers piles pressure on academics who are ranked by their output, creating a &quot;vicious cycle,&quot; he said.</p><p>Many have turned to ChatGPT to save time — which is not necessarily a bad thing.</p><p>Because nearly all papers are published in English, Bik said that AI translation tools can be invaluable to researchers — including herself — for whom English is not their first language.</p><p>But there are also fears that the errors, inventions and unwitting plagiarism by AI could increasingly erode society&#x27;s trust in science.</p><p>Another example of AI misuse came last week, when a researcher discovered what appeared to be a ChatGPT re-written version of one his own studies had been published in an academic journal.</p><p>Samuel Payne, a bioinformatics professor at Brigham Young University in the United States, told AFP that he had been asked to peer review the study in March.</p><p>After realizing it was &quot;100 percent plagiarism&quot; of his own study — but with the text seemingly rephrased by an AI program — he rejected the paper.</p><p>Payne said he was &quot;shocked&quot; to find the plagiarized work had simply been published elsewhere, in a new Wiley journal called Proteomics.</p><p>It has not been retracted.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div>

<p>Academic publishing giant Wiley has now introduced a "paper mill detection service" to detect AI misuse — which itself is powered by AI.</p>

Flood of 'junk': How AI is changing scientific publishing

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Flood of 'junk': How AI is changing scientific publishing

Agence France-Presse

Published Aug 10, 2024 01:33 PM PHT

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