Nature Will Take Its Course among Academics
October 18, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[2]](https://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t2-8.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[2]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
“How ChatGPT and Other AI Tools Could Disrupt Scientific Publishing: A World of AI-Assisted Writing and Reviewing Might Transform the Nature of the Scientific Paper” provides a respected publisher’s view of smart software. The viewshed is interesting, but it is different from my angle of sight. But “might”! How about “has”?
Peer reviewed publishing has been associated with backpatting, non-reproducible results, made-up data, recycled research, and grant grooming. The recent resignation of the president of Stanford University did not boost the image of academicians in my opinion.
The write up states:
The accessibility of generative AI tools could make it easier to whip up poor-quality papers and, at worst, compromise research integrity, says Daniel Hook, chief executive of Digital Science, a research-analytics firm in London. “Publishers are quite right to be scared,” says Hook. (Digital Science is part of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, the majority shareholder in Nature’s publisher, Springer Nature; Nature’s news team is editorially independent.)
Hmmm. I like the word “scared.”
If you grind through the verbal fancy dancing, you will come to research results and the graphic reproduced below:
This graphic is from Nature, a magazine which tried hard not to publish non-reproducible results, fake science, or synthetic data. Would a write up from the former Stanford University president or the former head of the Harvard University ethics department find their way to Nature’s audience? I don’t know.
Missing from the list is the obvious use of smart software: Let it do the research. Let the LLM crank out summaries of dull PDF papers (citations). Let the AI spit out a draft. Graduate students or research assistants can add some touch ups. The scholar can then mail it off to an acquaintance at a prestigious journal, point out the citations which point to that individual’s “original” work, and hope for the best.
Several observations:
- Peer reviewing is the realm of professional publishing. Money, not accuracy or removing bogus research, is the name of the game.
- The tenure game means that academics who want to have life-time employment have to crank out “research” and pony up cash to get the article published. Sharks and sucker fish are an ecological necessity it seems.
- In some disciplines like quantum computing or advanced mathematics, the number of people who can figure out if the article is on the money are few, far between, and often busy. Therefore, those who don’t know their keyboard’s escape key from a home’s “safe” room are ill equipped to render judgment.
Will this change? Not if those on tenure track or professional publishers have anything to say about the present system. The status quo works pretty well.
Net net: Social media is not the only channel for misinformation and fake data.
Stephen E Arnold, October 18, 2023
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