'Positive review only': Researchers hide AI prompts in papers

Post by jmmcd » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 6:33 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #34

luma wrote: post #30

Journals charge high prices for access to their content, and then charge the people who create that content high prices with claims they're spending a lot of time and effort in the review process. I find it pretty hard to fault these submissions in any way - journal publishers have been lining their own pockets at everyone's expense and these claims show pretty clearly that they aren't worth their cut.

These were preprints that have not been reviewed or published

Post by andrewmcwatters » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 6:46 PM UTC

Post by AIPedant » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 6:49 PM UTC

heikkilevanto wrote: post #57

Adding "invisible" text in a paper seems clearly fraudulent. I don't buy the argument that it is just to catch reviewers using AI, not when the text tells the AI to give positive reviews. In my opinion we should invoke the usual procedures for academic fraud, the same if the author had fabricated data or bribed reviewers. At least make public the redaction of the paper and hope their career ends there

Post by nerdsniper » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 6:52 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #42

seadan83 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it actually Van Halen? > As lead singer David Lee Roth explained in a 2012 interview, the bowl of M&Ms was an indicator of whether the concert promoter had actually read the band's complicated contract. [1] [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/van-halen-brown-m-ms-contrac...

I wonder if they had to change that as the word leaked out. I can just see the promoter pointing out the bowl of M&Ms and then Roth saying "great, thank you, but the contract didn't say anything about M&Ms, now where is the bowl of tangerenes we asked for?"

Post by seadan83 » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 7:02 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #22

dynm wrote: post #9

Just to be clear, these are hidden prompts put in papers by authors meant to be triggered only if a reviewer (unethically) uses AI to generate their review. I guess this is wrong, but I find it hard not to have some sympathy for the authors. Mostly, it seems like an indictment of the whole peer-review system.

Back in high school a few kids would be tempted to insert a sentence such as "I bet you don't actually read all these papers" into an essay to see if the teacher caught it. I never tried it but the rumors were that some kids had got away with it. I just used it to worry less that my work was rushed and not very good, I told myself "the teacher will probably just be skimming this anyway; they don't have time to read a…