The Medium comments on this post are also on point. Running the same experiment with accepted papers is a good control. Running a similar experiment with reviewers would be interesting, but more obnoxious because they are not being paid.
I would keep a private blacklist (shadow ban) the authors who wasted several hours of a reviewer's time to prove they were not legitimate. The existence of such a list would be problematic, though.
Could the same system we use here be applied? Accepted authors could "vouch" for "dead" papers in case they were "auto-killed"?
This system is broken and providing more evidence that it is broken isn't much of a step towards fixing it.
Do you imagine a world where people are willing to go through the legal hassle of changing their name to get past a ban for low effort journal submissions?
Validating someone’s association with an institution by name seems like a reasonable thing to do. Perhaps it wasn’t done in the past, but times and circumstances have changed. Trust in authorship is lower than ever, and for good reason.
Plagiarism, fictional data, and unreproducible results have been a problem for a some time, and LLMs are now increasingly standing in authors’ shoes. In a system that rewards production over all else, people are naturally going to be incentivized to cut corners.
Some cultures that are increasingly participating in the scientific process don’t even agree as to what the ethical boundaries are.
True, and thanks to llms are of those are being “exploited” exponentially more.
“In a system that rewards production over all else, people are naturally going to be incentivized to cut corners.” That sounds like the human condition and or capitalism, advancements in cars, weapons, toys, etc…
The agreement on ethical boundaries seems like a conversation held at a conference level, otherwise place a governs place b and that never goes well.
I agree fully replicable experiments is a minimum for research papers. Even with caveats it should be required. That being said those who don’t want to fully prove their claims will find another venue. I think frontier models should curb or have provably verified output (chatgpt did say x) for the majority cases to help reduce or help identify the slop.
> That sounds like the human condition and or capitalism, advancements in cars, weapons, toys, etc…
Indeed it is! That's why we set up rules of the game/road/etc. that we expect participants to adhere to, and impose sanctions when they don't. We're in that uncomfortable place today where we're trying to figure out how our rules should adapt to this new era.
Oh no I fully agree with that. We just have to find a medium that people can easily use but can’t abuse. The constant cat and mouse security problem given non-infinite money. In-person defense would solve this but I think the cost is too high.
Even if it's not a legal name, are you going to review the CV of an applicant who used a different name on every publication they claim authorship of? It's going to be pretty obvious someone is being nefarious
The CV of an applicant is definitely different. For a job application where a cv were used, that’s a slower/paid process where attention should be paid to details. However what’s a difference to a conference with a “young upcoming author” vs llm-Lorem ipsum author name?
You said that people could do a thing. I'm asking why they would.
Academic fraud is done to boost the reputation of the academic. There isn't a lot of point in academic fraud with one paper on each of 50 fake names.
Ahhhh, that makes more sense. Academic fraud may not always be used to boost the reputation of an academic, it could boost the reputation of a science/technique/medicine. If you see 30 authors with 1,000s of citations saying x is superior and 3 authors saying y is superior, from a quick glance x seems a lot better.
fn-mote · · focus · HN ↗
I would keep a private blacklist (shadow ban) the authors who wasted several hours of a reviewer's time to prove they were not legitimate. The existence of such a list would be problematic, though.
Could the same system we use here be applied? Accepted authors could "vouch" for "dead" papers in case they were "auto-killed"?
This system is broken and providing more evidence that it is broken isn't much of a step towards fixing it.
doc_ick · · focus · HN ↗
malfist · · focus · HN ↗
doc_ick · · focus · HN ↗
otterley · · focus · HN ↗
doc_ick · · focus · HN ↗
What good reason is there for trust in authorship to be low? I would likely agree for if it’s related to llm-slop.
otterley · · focus · HN ↗
Some cultures that are increasingly participating in the scientific process don’t even agree as to what the ethical boundaries are.
doc_ick · · focus · HN ↗
“In a system that rewards production over all else, people are naturally going to be incentivized to cut corners.” That sounds like the human condition and or capitalism, advancements in cars, weapons, toys, etc…
The agreement on ethical boundaries seems like a conversation held at a conference level, otherwise place a governs place b and that never goes well.
I agree fully replicable experiments is a minimum for research papers. Even with caveats it should be required. That being said those who don’t want to fully prove their claims will find another venue. I think frontier models should curb or have provably verified output (chatgpt did say x) for the majority cases to help reduce or help identify the slop.
otterley · · focus · HN ↗
Indeed it is! That's why we set up rules of the game/road/etc. that we expect participants to adhere to, and impose sanctions when they don't. We're in that uncomfortable place today where we're trying to figure out how our rules should adapt to this new era.
Life is messy.
doc_ick · · focus · HN ↗
malfist · · focus · HN ↗
doc_ick · · focus · HN ↗
wpietri · · focus · HN ↗
doc_ick · · focus · HN ↗
wpietri · · focus · HN ↗
Academic fraud is done to boost the reputation of the academic. There isn't a lot of point in academic fraud with one paper on each of 50 fake names.
doc_ick · · focus · HN ↗
Edit: see medical studies