I feel like two different problems are conflated into one though.
The academic review process is broken.
AI generated bullshit is going to cause all sorts of issues.
Point two can contribute to point 1 but for that a bunch of stuff needs to happen. Correct my if I am wrong but as far as my understanding of peer-review processes are supposed to go it is something along the lines of:
A researcher submits their manuscript to a journal.
An editor of that journal validates the paper fits within the scope and aims of the journal. It might get rejected here or it gets send out for review.
When it does get send out for review to several experts in the field, the actual peer reviewers. These are supposed to be knowledgeable about the specific topic the paper is about. These then read the paper closely and evaluate things like methodology, results, (lack of) data, and conclusions.
Feedback goes to the editor, who then makes a call about the paper. It either gets accepted, revisions are required or it gets rejected.
If at point 3 people don’t do the things I highlighted in bold then to me it seems like it is a bit silly to make this about AI.
If at point 4 the editor ignores most feedback for the peer reviewers, then it again has very little to do with AI and everything the a base process being broken.
To summarize, yes AI is going to fuck up a lot of information, it already has. But by just shouting, “AI is at it again with its antics!” at every turn instead of looking further and at other core issues we will only make things worse.
Edit:
To be clear, I am not even saying that peer reviewers or editors should “just do their job already”. But fake papers have been increasingly an issue for well over a decade as far as I am aware. The way the current peer review process works simply doesn’t seem to scale to where we are today. And yes, AI is not going to help with that, but it is still building upon something that already was broken before AI was used to abuse it.
But by just shouting, “AI is at it again with its antics!” at every turn instead of looking further and at other core issues we will only make things worse.
I think this is a very unfair characterization of what I and others have voiced. This has always been a fundamental issue when talking to AI-evangelists, which you may not be but your argument seems to fall in line with. There is this inherently defensive posture I find whenever a critique is levied of AI, yet if I were so protective of something like the internal combustion engine, people would (rightfully) raise eyebrows.
I agree that AI is a tool and often it is just widening cracks that exist, but we need to deal with these issues on multiple fronts and acknowledge that reckless adoption exacerbates the issue. And the new front that AI has opened up is scale. The ability for even someone with a modest, home-rolled LLM to just flood the internet with a bunch of crappy blog spam is outrageous and wasn’t even a possible 5 years ago. One person can do the damage of a thousand. Run a cursory google search and see what SEO + AI blog spam has wrought.
Characterizing it as “this was already an issue it’s not AI’s fault” is overly reductionist at its core. It’s passing the buck and saying that AI in no way, shape, or form, bears any responsibility for the problem. That just means we aren’t looking critically at what is a ultimately a tool and how it can be used for harm.
But fake papers have been increasingly an issue for well over a decade as far as I am aware.
Yes but these articles were not nearly as prolific. We are talking orders of magnitude more crap to sift through already occurring across many industries. It has never been this bad. Give the journals 1000 people and 100x the budget and eventually they will still be overcome. It’s not just “fix the review process.” It’s a complicated issue that is exploited in multiple ways.
I feel like this is the third time people are selective reading into what I have said.
I specifically acknowledge that AI is already causing all sorts of issues. I am also saying that there is also another issue at play. One that might be exacerbated by the use of AI but at its root isn’t caused by AI.
In fact, in this very thread people have pointed out that *in this case" the journal in question is simply the issue. https://beehaw.org/comment/2416937
In fact. The only people likely noticed is, ironically, the fact that AI was being used.
And again I fully agree, AI is causing massive issues already and disturbing a lot of things in destructive ways. But, that doesn’t mean all bullshit out there is caused by AI. Even if AI is tangible involved.
If that still, in your view, somehow makes me sound like an defensive AI evangelist then I don’t know what to tell you…
I feel like two different problems are conflated into one though.
Point two can contribute to point 1 but for that a bunch of stuff needs to happen. Correct my if I am wrong but as far as my understanding of peer-review processes are supposed to go it is something along the lines of:
If at point 3 people don’t do the things I highlighted in bold then to me it seems like it is a bit silly to make this about AI. If at point 4 the editor ignores most feedback for the peer reviewers, then it again has very little to do with AI and everything the a base process being broken.
To summarize, yes AI is going to fuck up a lot of information, it already has. But by just shouting, “AI is at it again with its antics!” at every turn instead of looking further and at other core issues we will only make things worse.
Edit:
To be clear, I am not even saying that peer reviewers or editors should “just do their job already”. But fake papers have been increasingly an issue for well over a decade as far as I am aware. The way the current peer review process works simply doesn’t seem to scale to where we are today. And yes, AI is not going to help with that, but it is still building upon something that already was broken before AI was used to abuse it.
I think this is a very unfair characterization of what I and others have voiced. This has always been a fundamental issue when talking to AI-evangelists, which you may not be but your argument seems to fall in line with. There is this inherently defensive posture I find whenever a critique is levied of AI, yet if I were so protective of something like the internal combustion engine, people would (rightfully) raise eyebrows.
I agree that AI is a tool and often it is just widening cracks that exist, but we need to deal with these issues on multiple fronts and acknowledge that reckless adoption exacerbates the issue. And the new front that AI has opened up is scale. The ability for even someone with a modest, home-rolled LLM to just flood the internet with a bunch of crappy blog spam is outrageous and wasn’t even a possible 5 years ago. One person can do the damage of a thousand. Run a cursory google search and see what SEO + AI blog spam has wrought.
Characterizing it as “this was already an issue it’s not AI’s fault” is overly reductionist at its core. It’s passing the buck and saying that AI in no way, shape, or form, bears any responsibility for the problem. That just means we aren’t looking critically at what is a ultimately a tool and how it can be used for harm.
Yes but these articles were not nearly as prolific. We are talking orders of magnitude more crap to sift through already occurring across many industries. It has never been this bad. Give the journals 1000 people and 100x the budget and eventually they will still be overcome. It’s not just “fix the review process.” It’s a complicated issue that is exploited in multiple ways.
I feel like this is the third time people are selective reading into what I have said.
I specifically acknowledge that AI is already causing all sorts of issues. I am also saying that there is also another issue at play. One that might be exacerbated by the use of AI but at its root isn’t caused by AI.
In fact, in this very thread people have pointed out that *in this case" the journal in question is simply the issue. https://beehaw.org/comment/2416937
In fact. The only people likely noticed is, ironically, the fact that AI was being used.
And again I fully agree, AI is causing massive issues already and disturbing a lot of things in destructive ways. But, that doesn’t mean all bullshit out there is caused by AI. Even if AI is tangible involved.
If that still, in your view, somehow makes me sound like an defensive AI evangelist then I don’t know what to tell you…