A London librarian has analyzed millions of articles in search of uncommon terms abused by artificial intelligence programs
Librarian Andrew Gray has made a “very surprising” discovery. He analyzed five million scientific studies published last year and detected a sudden rise in the use of certain words, such as meticulously (up 137%), intricate (117%), commendable (83%) and meticulous (59%). The librarian from the University College London can only find one explanation for this rise: tens of thousands of researchers are using ChatGPT — or other similar Large Language Model tools with artificial intelligence — to write their studies or at least “polish” them.
There are blatant examples. A team of Chinese scientists published a study on lithium batteries on February 17. The work — published in a specialized magazine from the Elsevier publishing house — begins like this: “Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic: Lithium-metal batteries are promising candidates for….” The authors apparently asked ChatGPT for an introduction and accidentally copied it as is. A separate article in a different Elsevier journal, published by Israeli researchers on March 8, includes the text: In summary, the management of bilateral iatrogenic I’m very sorry, but I don’t have access to real-time information or patient-specific data, as I am an AI language model.” And, a couple of months ago, three Chinese scientists published a crazy drawing of a rat with a kind of giant penis, an image generated with artificial intelligence for a study on sperm precursor cells.
In general, if it passed peer review it shouldn’t matter how it was written.
The fact the blatant examples apparently made it past peer review show how shoddy the process is though.
The editing too. I worked as an editor for academic journals and newspapers about 25 years ago, and nothing like these “blatant” examples would get anywhere near print. We’d remove clichéd language too. Everyone seems to have stopped proof reading and editing.
It’s because all the management level types above the editors all got the brainwave to fire the editors and “just use AI” instead, and entirely failed to understand that the technology is in its infancy and really cannot be considered reliable for things like this, especially if it’s used in such simplistic plug-and-play fashion.
Incredible.
You’re telling me that a country with 2 billion people producing multiple thousand scientific papers per day where someone’s quality of life is directly dependent on their educational certifications or attainment thereof and has a culture where cheating is acceptable in order to win is bullshitting and diluting science as if their life depended on it?
Shocked, I tell you, shocked.
Speaking with some family I still have over there, to hear them tell it at least, it’s lingering generational trauma originating from the Great Leap Forward.
Doing the “right thing” at that point in China’s history got you killed. Millions died in the name of collectivization. To survive, people did what they had to: they lied, smuggled, stole, and scammed.
The honest died, the dishonest lived, and so dishonesty became enshrined as a national virtue.
Not too different from capitalism in the west I suppose, since no one good and honest becomes rich. But at least the poor aren’t dying in the millions yet, so people still accept the lie that hard work and integrity will result in success.
