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AI-assisted writing is quietly booming in academic journals. Here’s why that’s OK

Lecturer in Bioethics, Monash University & Honorary fellow, Melbourne Law School, Monash University

Disclosure statement

Julian Koplin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Monash University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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If you search Google Scholar for the phrase “ as an AI language model ”, you’ll find plenty of AI research literature and also some rather suspicious results. For example, one paper on agricultural technology says:

As an AI language model, I don’t have direct access to current research articles or studies. However, I can provide you with an overview of some recent trends and advancements …

Obvious gaffes like this aren’t the only signs that researchers are increasingly turning to generative AI tools when writing up their research. A recent study examined the frequency of certain words in academic writing (such as “commendable”, “meticulously” and “intricate”), and found they became far more common after the launch of ChatGPT – so much so that 1% of all journal articles published in 2023 may have contained AI-generated text.

(Why do AI models overuse these words? There is speculation it’s because they are more common in English as spoken in Nigeria, where key elements of model training often occur.)

The aforementioned study also looks at preliminary data from 2024, which indicates that AI writing assistance is only becoming more common. Is this a crisis for modern scholarship, or a boon for academic productivity?

Who should take credit for AI writing?

Many people are worried by the use of AI in academic papers. Indeed, the practice has been described as “ contaminating ” scholarly literature.

Some argue that using AI output amounts to plagiarism. If your ideas are copy-pasted from ChatGPT, it is questionable whether you really deserve credit for them.

But there are important differences between “plagiarising” text authored by humans and text authored by AI. Those who plagiarise humans’ work receive credit for ideas that ought to have gone to the original author.

By contrast, it is debatable whether AI systems like ChatGPT can have ideas, let alone deserve credit for them. An AI tool is more like your phone’s autocomplete function than a human researcher.

The question of bias

Another worry is that AI outputs might be biased in ways that could seep into the scholarly record. Infamously, older language models tended to portray people who are female, black and/or gay in distinctly unflattering ways, compared with people who are male, white and/or straight.

This kind of bias is less pronounced in the current version of ChatGPT.

However, other studies have found a different kind of bias in ChatGPT and other large language models : a tendency to reflect a left-liberal political ideology.

Any such bias could subtly distort scholarly writing produced using these tools.

The hallucination problem

The most serious worry relates to a well-known limitation of generative AI systems: that they often make serious mistakes.

For example, when I asked ChatGPT-4 to generate an ASCII image of a mushroom, it provided me with the following output.

It then confidently told me I could use this image of a “mushroom” for my own purposes.

These kinds of overconfident mistakes have been referred to as “ AI hallucinations ” and “ AI bullshit ”. While it is easy to spot that the above ASCII image looks nothing like a mushroom (and quite a bit like a snail), it may be much harder to identify any mistakes ChatGPT makes when surveying scientific literature or describing the state of a philosophical debate.

Unlike (most) humans, AI systems are fundamentally unconcerned with the truth of what they say. If used carelessly, their hallucinations could corrupt the scholarly record.

Should AI-produced text be banned?

One response to the rise of text generators has been to ban them outright. For example, Science – one of the world’s most influential academic journals – disallows any use of AI-generated text .

I see two problems with this approach.

The first problem is a practical one: current tools for detecting AI-generated text are highly unreliable. This includes the detector created by ChatGPT’s own developers, which was taken offline after it was found to have only a 26% accuracy rate (and a 9% false positive rate ). Humans also make mistakes when assessing whether something was written by AI.

It is also possible to circumvent AI text detectors. Online communities are actively exploring how to prompt ChatGPT in ways that allow the user to evade detection. Human users can also superficially rewrite AI outputs, effectively scrubbing away the traces of AI (like its overuse of the words “commendable”, “meticulously” and “intricate”).

The second problem is that banning generative AI outright prevents us from realising these technologies’ benefits. Used well, generative AI can boost academic productivity by streamlining the writing process. In this way, it could help further human knowledge. Ideally, we should try to reap these benefits while avoiding the problems.

The problem is poor quality control, not AI

The most serious problem with AI is the risk of introducing unnoticed errors, leading to sloppy scholarship. Instead of banning AI, we should try to ensure that mistaken, implausible or biased claims cannot make it onto the academic record.

After all, humans can also produce writing with serious errors, and mechanisms such as peer review often fail to prevent its publication.

We need to get better at ensuring academic papers are free from serious mistakes, regardless of whether these mistakes are caused by careless use of AI or sloppy human scholarship. Not only is this more achievable than policing AI usage, it will improve the standards of academic research as a whole.

This would be (as ChatGPT might say) a commendable and meticulously intricate solution.

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Article Contents

Where have we been, where should we go, some final big thoughts on society and culture, author notes.

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Conversations on Society and Culture

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June Cotte, Conversations on Society and Culture, Journal of Consumer Research , Volume 51, Issue 1, June 2024, Pages 52–55, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucae010

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This article takes a “then and now” perspective on social and cultural issues in the Journal of Consumer Research . The author had conversations with preeminent scholars who reflected on theoretical developments over time, what we know, and what we should be most concerned with now and in the future. This article can be used as a call to action for future consumer research dealing with society and culture.

Gee, not much has changed in the last 50 years, has it? Whether your lens is a global one, or one based in the U.S., where the Journal of Consumer Research ( JCR ) began, it should be clear that while we have made progress in understanding and solving some problems under the broad rubric of “society and culture,” there are still many unanswered questions. For example, in 1974, there were concerns about consumption and persuasion in children and families reflected in JCR ’s first issue, with several articles on marital roles in decisions ( Davis and Rigaux 1974 ), husband–wife influence in family purchases ( Ferber and Lee 1974) , articles on children and advertising persuasion ( Goldberg and Gorn 1974 ; Robertson and Rossiter 1974 ), and overall consumer socialization ( Aldous and McLeod 1974 ; Ward 1974 ). Those issues still resonate in consumer research (and JCR ) today. Although the first issue did not directly address environmental issues, by its second issue, in 1975, an article in JCR was discussing the “socially conscious consumer” ( Webster 1975 ). Yet 50 years later, we now appreciate the global scale of the environmental problem, and its interconnected, systemic properties. And although encouraging consumers to do their part for the environment still makes some sense, our understanding of how business and government benefit when the onus is moved to the consumer has also advanced. Perhaps we can conclude that the social and cultural problems and issues have not changed, but work in JCR has helped us understand them better. The articles in this section of the Special Anniversary Issue continue our learning in this domain, with articles on race, disability, wealth inequality, and climate change/sustainability.

Before diving into those new and exciting articles, I would like you to join me in a conversation with some prominent marketing scholars. In summer 2023, I interviewed nine scholars on the broad topic of society and culture. So that I can use just their first names in what follows, I would like to thank Eric Arnould, Zeynep Arsel, Russ Belk, CB Bhattacharya, Susan Dobscha, Eileen Fischer, Linda Price, Debbie Roedder John, and Carolyn Yoon for the gift of their time and insights. Of course, what follows is a very condensed version of our conversation, but I hope readers find it as illuminating as I did!

First, I wanted these scholars’ reflections on what we have learned over the last 50 years, and importantly, what we still need to know. First, let us reflect: what have consumer researchers learned about society and culture? These sages tackled this broad question in different ways, but with a surprising degree of consensus. At a very high level, there was a recognition that consumer culture, at least in the developed west/global north, is culture. That at a very macro view, our culture and society is defined by consumption, for better or for worse. Zeynep pointed out that consumption is an important part of the dynamics of how societies structure themselves and how they change, and Eric argued that consumer researchers should realize that at least in industrialized economies, what we study is the essence of the culture, and we should be able to recognize both the positives and the negatives of that consumer culture.

In reflecting back over the 50 years of JCR , several scholars sketched out the progression of our thoughts on consumers and consumption. Susan pointed out that this movement perhaps started when we began seeing consumers not purely as economic beings, and not purely as psychological beings. Linda stated that initially we largely saw consumers as individuals who calculated everything and then made their choice. CB pointed out that the field was just sort of consumerism-oriented; we assumed consumers spent a lot of time (so we spent a lot of time researching) which brand to buy, which features are important, all those utility models, and how choices get made. We were mainly focused on what would boost consumption. Russ also discussed how we have moved from a more psychological bent to a more cultural bent, to look at the impacts on society. Eileen summarized this progression as “We’ve gone from seeing consumers as some semi-efficient information processors through seeing them as emotively expressive identity crafters and now, I think, seeing them as embedded agents in complex social structures….” But, as Carolyn pointed out, we know a lot about how consumers make deliberate conscious decisions. But the societal cultural influences have been much harder to nail down. There is always more work to be done!

Linda argued that we can sometimes forget how revolutionary these changes were, as the field started “to rethink how we were thinking about the people we were studying and trying to build out from that to understand culture in a different way.” And, as JCR began as a North American journal, this progression was largely centered on western, middle-class, white consumers and culture. But that is also changing. As Russ pointed out, there are many societies and cultures. We could do a much better job of forging research alliances across cultures and across societies, including indigenous cultures in our own countries. His basic advice is to get out of our society and culture, which does not necessarily mean traveling anymore. “It’s eye-opening. And it’s wonderful. And we’re privileged to have this great freedom that we have in academia, so take advantage of it!”

Eileen also wants us to take a global perspective to constructs and contexts and ask, for example, what our constructs (created in the global north) look like in other contexts, such as the global south? In other contexts, some other constructs will surface. She talked about the concept of rhizomatic knowledge, where ideas will travel underground, metaphorically speaking, and resurface somewhere else, looking very different. The connections would be subtle, and not hierarchical, but under the surface. Susan pointed out that classic demographic variables such as gender and race are starting to be interpreted not just as moderators, but as complex, nuanced, potentially power-laden factors that impact consumers’ lives and decisions. Debbie pointed out that there has been a dramatic rise in bi-cultural consumers, in the U.S. and around the world, and she is not sure how many consumer researchers understand this important cultural shift.

Summarizing, JCR researchers have expanded from a singular focus on an information-processing consumer in an American society focused on consumption culture, to a more fully fleshed-out understanding of a culturally embedded, global, and intersectional consumer, who both influences, and is influenced by, the society and culture in which they consume. But there is so much more to learn. So, I also asked these scholars their views of important issues we should focus on in the next decade or so. For junior scholars who may be reading this, you should be buoyed by this section: there are so many problems out there to solve.

While there may have been a little less consensus on what problems to focus on, there was unanimity on the view that we need to tackle big, important problems. Several people mentioned that of course consumer researchers will not be the only ones tackling big societal problems, but we have an important (and useful) perspective. Let us start with sustainable consumer choices. CB pointed out that we could study, for example, why and how consumers could be motivated to buy less, to choose quality over quantity, the role (if any) of brand purpose in driving choice. He discussed that his own research on “doing well by doing good” was too instrumental; businesses should just do the right thing because it is morally right. But what does that look like? How is a moral brand different? Is purpose-driven the same thing as moral? Carolyn talked about the massive implications of climate change and sustainability for consumption, and Eric pointed out that we could study how consumers change the organization of their lives, which could include circular economies, cooperative consumption, sharing economies, and even the radical choices consumers make, such as the choice to live in an eco village. Russ pointed out aspects of sustainable choices that we have not investigated in depth yet; a fascinating example was dematerialization: once, we could know someone from the books on their shelves, or from their music collection. As reading and music moved online (with a positive environmental aspect) consumers now must make an effort to share their tastes with others. What are the implications of that?

Ethics came up several times in our conversations. In addition to CB’s comments in terms of sustainability and morality, ethics came up in my conversations with Susan and Zeynep as well. Both talked about the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), and while acknowledging that we are not ethics or legal scholars, we could learn from other disciplines and create a fulsome ethical framework for consumption and marketing, particularly as it relates the emergence of AI and its effects on culture and society. Zeynep points out that in AI there are legal and ethical grey zones that have implications for consumers.

Virtually everyone discussed inequality and discrimination in markets, with its many unanswered and important issues. Eileen argued that inequitable treatment of marginalized groups has had a resurgence, and Susan argued that we cannot have inclusive marketing until we realize exclusion exists. Russ points out that as a field, we do not study the gap between those with access to digital technologies and those without access as much as we used to. But this is a mistake: emerging technologies (such as virtual reality tools and spaces) will require financial resources that most of the world cannot afford. He points out that there is a marginalized aspect to the digital consumption world that we often overlook.

Zeynep pointed out that we are finally beginning to address issues like race and gender in consumer research, which also reflects a cultural change, but she is also worried there may be a backlash to that, which we are already seeing in the global public sphere. She stated that there has finally been progress made on these topics that we were not supposed to do research on; will that be dialed back? Susan pointed out that after some early feminist work in JCR in the 1990s, there has not been much direct work on gender, but that is changing. Russ argued that we (as consumer researchers) are really just beginning to get intersectional and to study race, gender, and disabilities more seriously. He thinks we are beginning to ask “Whom do we represent? Whom do we consider?” And Eileen also wants to see more work on gender, directly paying attention to gender without some context where it is embedded into a larger issue. They all want to encourage continued momentum on gender equality, and Eileen “fears that if we don’t keep it front and center, we are just going to suffer such backlash.”

Eric worried about premature intellectual maturity, the idea that we know all that there is to know about consumption already. There are so many big problems left to solve, but he feels that the spaces for novelty and experimentation of ideas have shrunk. We need to fight against becoming too rigid and ossified. Scholars, particularly young scholars, will face pushback if they tackle big important problems. But we need that! Susan pointed out that consumer researchers have tried to contribute to those big conversations, such as on climate change, but have not got very far in making real differences. She thinks that we need to partner with those who can help our work make a real difference, including companies. She acknowledges that change is slow, especially within academia, and it is frustrating for big thinkers and forward thinkers. But we must keep trying to address the bigger issues.

CB agreed that as a discipline we are lagging in our research on the big questions and that we need to be collaborating with businesses on the major challenges. But he points out that we need access to businesses, and that is not always forthcoming. But we need to be tackling big problems! Debbie also pointed out that if consumer researchers want to capture some of the excitement that is happening around data and digital analytics, then we are going to have to pay a little more attention to what the problems are, and what kinds of situations and challenges people have in the marketing business world. She argued that to maintain our importance as a discipline, we need to bring all that wonderful theoretical substance and methodological skills to issues that companies are concerned about. As she said, “We have to step it up.”

Regardless of the big problems we decide to study, Linda advised us to stop thinking so theoretically and truly focus on those problems. She would like us to become more abductive, more context engaged, and more multi-method, using multiple roots, and multiple sources of knowledge, multiple types of scholarship. While mentioning thorny problems such as gun control, refugee issues, and opioid use, she stated that “We need to become less theoretical and less sort of an army of agents trying to protect the theory and more an army of agents trying to understand these incredibly complex problems.” I think I will leave the last word to Carolyn, who stated “I want our young people to take the risk and be brave and do really great work that actually speaks to how these sorts of big disruptions and changes affect consumers.” Be brave!

One of the more fascinating questions I asked (and thanks to Stacy Wood for the idea) was “If you had 5–10 Minutes to advise a global leader, what would you tell them as a consumer researcher?” Boy, did the answers run the gamut! While these comments are intended as advice for world leaders, they also point to intriguing opportunities for consumer research questions and issues.

Zeynep argued that we have been tasking ordinary consumers with the responsibility to take care of lots of issues that world leaders are abdicating, from public health to privacy. Corporations and other organizations have been abdicating their responsibilities and putting a lot of pressure on ordinary citizens, who may not be equipped to handle it. She used the fascinating example of her robot vacuum, which also happens to come with a camera one can access outside the house, and mused about whether ordinary consumers understand the trade-offs inherent in some of these new technologies; corporations write long disclaimers and leave protecting their personal privacy in the hands of consumers.

Several scholars would advise world leaders about sustainability issues. Eric would tell them that “…consumer culture that has unlocked an enormous amount of potential and joy and pleasure for a small number of people… we need to think about how to redistribute the benefits of this system in new ways that don’t mean that we’re going to burn up the planet.” Russ pointed out that the hypocrisy of the more affluent parts of the world telling the less affluent, in essence, do not consume like we consume. But he points out that “We need to decouple consumption aspirations with the realism that we have a finite resource world.” And Linda would tell world leaders that the conversation on sustainability has been hijacked to become political rhetoric when it should not have. It is a problem we all should be working on. Words such as sustainability may work against us if the words we use label something as political or progressive. These scholars are confident that our community of researchers can contribute to that discussion and can think about those kinds of problems from the perspectives of insights into consumer behavior at the micro, meso, and macro levels. And so am I.

I hope you have found these conversations spurred your thinking and sparked some new (and big) ideas. But it is also quite possible that as you read, you began to counterargue: these problems are too big, too controversial, too complex, etc. So I would like to introduce you to the work of JCR scholars delving into these sorts of problems right now, in this special issue.

In the following pages, you will read an article on inequality, two on sustainability, one on race, and one on disability. First, Trujillo-Torres et al. (2024) use the context of the cancer care market in the U.S. to explore the construct of a value hierarchy, resulting in (among other important outcomes) inequality of resource distribution, with effects on consumer power and agency. In the sustainability space, Mende et al. (2024) take a retrospective look back, examine what consumer research does (and does not) know concerning the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and point out how consumer researchers could incorporate these goals into their research and teaching. Following that, Huang and Wong’s (2024) article points out an interesting “reuse and resale cycle” with clear implications for more sustainable consumption. Next up in terms of the big issues, Grier et al. (2024) tackle race in consumer research, taking a look back over 50 years at JCR , but also pointing the way forward to a consumer research focus that foregrounds racial dynamics. Finally, Grewal and van der Sluis (2024) investigate why disability accessibility is still not universal and offer practical interventions for marketers wanting to increase disability accessibility. In all these articles, these researchers (both established and new scholars) are rising to the challenge of tackling big problems, and I am grateful to them.

June Cotte ( [email protected] ) is Kraft Professor of Marketing at the Ivey Business School, Western University, Canada.

The author thanks the experts for the fascinating conversations and insights that formed the basis of this article.

Aldous Joan , McLeod Jack M. ( 1974 ), “ Commentaries on Ward, ‘Consumer Socialization’ ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 1 ( 2 ), 15 – 7 .

Google Scholar

Davis Harry L. , Rigaux Benny P. ( 1974 ), “ Perceptions of Marital Roles in Decision Processes ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 1 ( 1 ), 51 – 62 .

Ferber Robert , Lee Lucy Chao ( 1974 ), “ Husband-Wife Influence in Family Purchasing Behavior ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 1 ( 1 ), 43 – 50 .

Goldberg Marvin E. , Gorn Gerald J. ( 1974 ), “ Children’s Reaction to Television Advertising: An Experimental Approach ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 1 ( 2 ), 69 – 75 .

Grewal Lauren , van der Sluis Helen ( 2024 ), “ Hidden Barriers to Marketplace Disability Accessibility: An Empirical Analysis of the Role of Perceived Trade-Offs ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 51 ( 1 ), forthcoming.

Grier Sonya A. , Crockett David , Johnson Guillaume D. , Thomas Kevin D. , Bradford Tonya Williams ( 2024 ), “ Race in Consumer Research: Past, Present, and Future ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 51 ( 1 ), forthcoming.

Huang Feifei , Wong Vincent Chi ( 2024 ), “ From Second-Hand to Third-Hand: Reuse and Resale Cycle ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 51 ( 1 ), forthcoming.

Mende Martin , Borah Abhishek , Scott Maura L. , Bolton Lisa E. , Lee Leonard ( 2024 ), “ People, Peace, Prosperity, and the Planet: A Journey toward Sustainable Development in Consumer Research ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 51 ( 1 ), forthcoming.

Robertson Thomas S. , Rossiter John R. ( 1974 ), “ Children and Commercial Persuasion: An Attribution Theory Analysis ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 1 ( 1 ), 13 – 20 .

Trujillo-Torres Lez E. , DeBerry-Spence Benét , Grier Sonya A. , Askegaard Søren ( 2024 ), “ After 50 Years, It is Time to Talk about Value Hierarchy and Inequality ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 51 ( 1 ), forthcoming.

Ward Scott ( 1974 ), “ Consumer Socialization,” Journal of Consumer Research , 1 ( 2 ), 1 – 14 .

Webster Frederick E. ( 1975 ), “ Determining the Characteristics of the Socially Conscious Consumer ,” Journal of Consumer Research , 2 ( 3 ), 188 – 96 .

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Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Regional Research Institute helps launch new outreach journal

Heather Stephens is a co-founding editor of Reaching Regions, an academic journal that launched this month in partnership with WVU, Iowa State University and the North American Regional Science Council.

Publications are required to use non-technical language aimed at non-academic audiences and the open access journal aims to distribute articles quickly to help ensure the timely delivery of research important to policy-making. 

“One of the goals of the journal is to make regional economics and other related research more accessible to the policymakers and the public,” Stephens said.  “Most academics publish their research in journal articles, yet most of those journals are not compatible with research dissemination.” 

To address the needs of the academic audience producing the research, Reaching Regions will be peer-reviewed. Submissions should address topics related to North America and formats may include descriptive analyses, non-technical summaries of published academic research, case studies with broader implications, research syntheses, data visualizations and other items of interest to readers.

John Winters, professor of economics at Iowa State’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, is the other co-founding editor. Kevin Kane of the Southern California Association of Governments, Amanda Weinstein of the Center on Rural Innovation, and Emily Wornell of the Center for Local and State Policy at Ball State University serve as co-editors.

Access Reaching Regions published by Iowa State University Digital Press.

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• Why Scientific Fraud Is Suddenly Everywhere

Junk science has been forcing a reckoning among scientific and medical researchers for the past year, leading to thousands of retracted papers. Last year, Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned amid reporting that some of his most high-profile work on Alzheimer’s disease was at best inaccurate. (A probe commissioned by the university’s board of trustees later exonerated him of manipulating the data).

But the problems around credible science appear to be getting worse. Last week, scientific publisher Wiley decided to shutter 19 scientific journals after retracting 11,300 sham papers. There is a large-scale industry of so-called “paper mills” that sell fictive research, sometimes written by artificial intelligence, to researchers who then publish it in peer-reviewed journals — which are sometimes edited by people who had been placed by those sham groups. Among the institutions exposing such practices is Retraction Watch, a 14-year-old organization co-founded by journalists Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus. I spoke with Oransky about why there has been a surge in fake research and whether fraud accusations against the presidents of Harvard and Stanford are actually good for academia.

Give me a sense of how big a problem these paper mills are. 

I’ll start by saying that paper mills are not the problem; they are a symptom of the actual problem. Adam Marcus, my co-founder, had broken a really big and frightening story about a painkiller involving scientific fraud , which led to dozens of retractions. That’s what got us interested in that. There were all these retractions, far more than we thought but far fewer than there are now. Now, they’re hiding in plain sight.

That was 2010. Certainly, AI has accelerated things, but we’ve known about paper mills for a long time. Everybody wanted to pretend all these problems didn’t exist. The problems in scientific literature are long-standing, and they’re an incentive problem. And the metrics that people use to measure research feed a business model — a ravenous sort of insatiable business model. Hindsight is always going to be 20/20, but a lot of people actually were predicting what we’re seeing now.

Regarding your comment that paper mills are symptoms of a larger problem, I read this story in Science and was struck by the drive for credentialing — which gets you better jobs, higher pay, and more prestige. In academia, there aren’t enough jobs; are the hurdles to these jobs impossibly high, especially for people who may be smart but are from China or India and may not have entry into an American or European university? 

I actually would go one step higher. When you say there aren’t enough jobs, it’s because we’re training so many Ph.D.’s and convincing them all that the only way to remain a scientist is to stay in academia. It’s not, and that hasn’t been true for a long time. So there’s definitely a supply-and-demand problem, and people are going to compete.

You may recall the story about high-school students who were paying to get medical papers published in order to get into college. That’s the sort of level we’re at now. It’s just pervasive. People are looking only at metrics, not at actual papers. We’re so fixated on metrics because they determine funding for a university based on where it is in the rankings. So it comes from there and then it filters down. What do universities then want? Well, they want to attract people who are likely to publish papers. So how do you decide that? “Oh, you’ve already published some papers, great. We’re gonna bring you in.” And then when you’re there, you’ve got to publish even more.

You’re replacing actual findings and science and methodology and the process with what I would argue are incredibly misleading — even false — metrics. Paper mills are industrializing it. This is like the horse versus the steam engine.

So they’re Moneyballing it. 

Absolutely. They’ve Moneyballed it with a caveat: Moneyball sort of worked. The paper mills have metricized it, which is not as sexy to say. If you were to isolate one factor, citations matter the most, and if you look at the ranking systems, it’s all right there. The Times Higher Education world-university rankings , U.S. News — look at whichever you want, and somewhere between like 30 percent and 60 percent of those rankings are based on citations. Citations are so easy to game. So people are setting up citation cartels: “Yes, we will get all of our other clients to cite you, and nobody will notice because we’re doing it in this algorithmic, mixed-up way.” Eventually, people do notice, but it’s the insistence on citations as the coin of the realm that all of this comes from.

Your work gets to the heart of  researchers’ integrity. Do you feel like you’re a pariah in the scientific community?

I’m a volunteer. Adam is paid a very small amount. We use our funding to pay two reporters and then two people work on our database side. We approach these things journalistically; we don’t actually identify the problems ourselves. It’s very, very rare for us to do that. Even when it may appear that way on a superficial read — we’ve broken some stories recently about clear problems in literature — it’s always because a source showed us the way. Sometimes those sources want to be named, sometimes they don’t.

We’ve been doing this for 14 years. There are various ways to look at what the scientific community thinks of us. We’re publishing 100 posts a year about people committing bad behavior and only getting, on average, one cease-and-desist letter a year. We have never been sued, but we do carried defamation insurance. Our work is cited hundreds of times in the scientific literature. I definitely don’t feel like a pariah. Me saying I’m a pariah would be a little bit like, you know, someone whose alleged cancellation has promoted them to the top of Twitter.

People are unhappy that we have do what we do. If you talk to scientists, the things we’re exposing or others are exposing are well known to them. Because of the structures, the hierarchies, and the power differentials in science, it’s very difficult for them as insiders to blow the whistle. There’s a book out by Carl Elliott about whistleblowers , mostly in the sort of more clinical fields. That’s the vulnerable position. That’s where you end up being a pariah even though you should be considered a hero or heroine.

Are some fields better at policing their own research than others?

Yes. Going back to the origin story of Retraction Watch, Adam broke a story about this guy named Scott Reuben, who came from anesthesiology. We have a leaderboard of the people with the most retractions in the world, and at least three out of the top ten right now are anesthesiologists. That is a much higher percentage than one might expect. Some people may say, “Oh, does anesthesiology have a problem?” No, in fact, anesthesiology has been doing something about this arguably longer than any other field has.

What is it about anesthesiology that makes it so anesthesiologists are more willing to scrutinize the work in their own field?

It had a crisis earlier than others, and it’s small. Journal editors are generally considered pretty august personages, leaders in the field. They got together and it was like a collective action by the journal editors when they realized they had problems. I’m not saying anesthesiologists are better, but they’re a more tight-knit community, which I do think is important. The same thing happened in social psychology and in psychology writ large. There’s a higher number than you would expect of people on leaderboards in that field. So it’s a question of, When did they get there, and how did they react to it? There are fields that haven’t actually gotten there, even though it’s been a while. So maybe there are some sociologists who could tell you better than me why that might be the case.

That wasn’t the reason I expected. I thought you would say something along the lines of, well, it’s life or death and anesthesiologists don’t want to see people dying on the table. 

If anything, sometimes when the stakes are higher, fields are more resistant.

There’s a guy named Ben Mol. Ben is an OB/GYN, and he is a force to be reckoned with. Fascinating character. He’s a pit bull, and he has found tons and tons of problems in the OB/GYN literature. I would characterize the leaders in that field now as still a bit more reluctant to engage with these issues than some of the other fields I mentioned.

Can you tell me how you go about authenticating real language from AI, especially in papers that can be hard to parse and are laden with jargon to begin with? 

We rely on experts. We’re not really doing that ourselves. You don’t need to be an expert; you just need to know how to use Ctrl+F if you see certain phrases in a paper. And by the way, a lot of journals are perfectly fine with people using chat GPT and other kinds of AI. It’s just whether you disclose it or not. These are cases where they didn’t disclose it.

With the resignation of Stanford’s and Harvard’s presidents, do you worry about the way the general public has been using these tools?

The fact that they’re giving speeding tickets to certain groups of people doesn’t mean we’re not all speeding. It means they’re getting targeted in, I would argue, an unfair way. We’re in a great reckoning with Harvard’s Claudine Gay being the key example. Former Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne is not an example of that. The targeting is a concern. And clearly, there are false positives. The flip side of this is that AI is being used to find these problems.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The story was updated to include that a probe found that Tessier-Lavigne didn’t manipulate data.

• just asking questions

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