I noted that City Journal did a detailed review of the ideological capture of science journalism. The must-read article ended by begging for a return to “the core principles of science—and the broader tradition of fact-based discourse and debate—our society.”Facts are necessary for good science, the foundation of sensible and effective policy-making. Therefore, it is extremely troubling to learn that several academic journals were recently shuttered because their articles contained fake science.
Fake studies have flooded the publishers of top scientific journals, leading to thousands of retractions and millions of dollars in lost revenue. The biggest hit has come to Wiley, a 217-year-old publisher based in Hoboken, N.J., which Tuesday will announce that it is closing 19 journals, some of which were infected by large-scale research fraud.In the past two years, Wiley has retracted more than 11,300 papers that appeared compromised, according to a spokesperson, and closed four journals. It isn’t alone: At least two other publishers have retracted hundreds of suspect papers each. Several others have pulled smaller clusters of bad papers.Although this large-scale fraud represents a small percentage of submissions to journals, it threatens the legitimacy of the nearly $30 billion academic publishing industry and the credibility of science as a whole.The discovery of nearly 900 fraudulent papers in 2022 at IOP Publishing, a physical sciences publisher, was a turning point for the nonprofit. “That really crystallized for us, everybody internally, everybody involved with the business,” said Kim Eggleton, head of peer review and research integrity at the publisher. “This is a real threat.”
The journals are associated with Wiley’s Hindawi subsidiary, an Egypt-based house that published 250 journals and was acquired in 2021. One contributing factor to the increasing number of fraudulent research papers is the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Hindawi’s journals were found to be publishing papers from paper mills – organizations or groups of individuals who try to subvert the academic publishing process for financial gain. Over the past two years, a Wiley spokesperson told The Register, the publisher has retracted more than 11,300 papers from its Hindawi portfolio.As described in a Wiley-authored white paper published last December, “Tackling publication manipulation at scale: Hindawi’s journey and lessons for academic publishing,” paper mills rely on various unethical practices – such as the use of AI in manuscript fabrication and image manipulations, and gaming the peer review process….The increasing availability and sophistication of generative AI is not the only factor contributing to the academic publishing crisis, but AI tools make fakery easier.”The industry recognizes that AI is utilized by paper mills to generate fraudulent content,” Wiley’s spokesperson told us. “We’ve recently introduced a new screening technology that helps identify papers with potential misuse of generative AI before the point of publication.”
Professional organizations are asking if AI can be used to detect AI-generated paper-milled articles.
The answer appears to be not completely.
Using artificial intelligence, researchers trained a computer to look for several red flags commonly seen in fake papers submitted to scientific journals.
When the tool could pick out red flags with 90 percent accuracy, it was used to comb through roughly 5,000 neuroscience and medical papers published in 2020.The tool marked 28 percent as probably made-up or plagiarized.
A second, hands-on check was, of course, required — and the second check found that two-thirds of the computer-flagged papers were indeed fake. So the computer can point out a basis for investigation but it can’t do the whole job.
Paper mills use AI to produce fake publications, which are then sold to researchers. Those researchers will pay between $1,000 and S$25,000 for the material. While the quality of the product is poor, it seems that the articles still manage to pass peer review.
Additionally, paper mills will pay publishers to accept their fake studies.
Between 2010 and 2020, the new tool revealed a 12 percentage point increase in the rate of potential fake papers published by some journals.The nation with the highest number of potential fakes was China, contributing to just over half the red flags. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and India were also significant contributors.”Fake science publishing is possibly the biggest science scam of all times, wasting financial resources, slowing down medical progress, and possibly endangering lives,” researchers argue.And the rise of generative AI such as ChatGPT only makes the scam more of a threat.
Critical research in all fields is being compromised thanks to AI-generated sham science paired with human greed. University research systems that reward publication quantity over quality are also contributing factors. Peers are also clearly not doing “peer review.”
I fear for the future of genuine science research that enhances our lives through knowledge, understanding, innovation, and progress.
We don’t need the Terminator from the future to kill us. It looks like AI is already doing that without time travel.
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