Chasing a Folly: Identifying AI Content

June 24, 2024

As are other academic publishers, Springer Nature Group is plagued by fake papers. Now the company announces, “Springer Nature Unveils Two New AI Tools to Protect Research Integrity.” How effective the tools are remains to be proven, but at least the company is making an effort. The press release describes text-checker Geppetto and image-analysis tool SnappShot. We learn:

“Geppetto works by dividing the paper up into sections and uses its own algorithms to check the consistency of the text in each section. The sections are then given a score based on the probability that the text in them has been AI generated. The higher the score, the greater the probability of there being problems, initiating a human check by Springer Nature staff. Geppetto is already responsible for identifying hundreds of fake papers soon after submission, preventing them from being published – and from taking up editors’ and peer reviewers’ valuable time.

SnappShot, also developed in-house, is an AI-assisted image integrity analysis tool. Currently used to analyze PDF files containing gel and blot images and look for duplications in those image types – another known integrity problem within the industry – this will be expanded to cover additional image types and integrity problems and speed up checks on papers.”

Springer Nature’s Chris Graf emphasizes the importance of research integrity and vows to continue developing and improving in-house tools. To that end, we learn, the company is still growing its fraud-detection team. The post points out Springer Nature is a contributing member of the STM Integrity Hub.

Based in Berlin, Springer Nature was formed in 2015 through the combination of Nature Publishing Group, Macmillan Education, and Springer Science+Business Media. A few of its noteworthy publications include Scientific American, Nature, and this collection of Biology, Clinical Medicine, and Health journals.

Cynthia Murrell, June 24, 2024

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, News, Publishing, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.