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2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

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Re: 2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

#31

Post by jjgreen »

jacquesm wrote: post #19
everdrive wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking people have worse impulse control than they believe they do. Once you give a tool that does most of the work for you, very very few people will actually be able to use that tool in truly enriching ways. The majority of people (even the smart ones) will weaken over time and take shortcuts.

I have a very simple solution to this but it is a bit expensive. I run two laptops, one that I talk to an LLM on and another where I do all my work and which is my main machine. The LLM is strictly there in a consulting role, I've done some coding experiments as well (see previous comments) but nothing that stood out to me as a major improvement. The trick is: I can't cut-and-paste between the two machines. So there…

You could ssh in to the "dirty" machine ... just sayin'

Re: 2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

#33

Post by retsibsi »

everdrive wrote: post #6
hodgehog11 wrote: post #4

I'm amazed that such a simple method of detection worked so flawlessly for so many people. This would not work for those who merely used LLMs to help pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in the paper; there are separate techniques to judge that. Instead, it only detects those who quite literally copied and pasted the LLM output as a review. It's incredible how so many people thought it was fair that their paper should b…

Generally speaking people have worse impulse control than they believe they do. Once you give a tool that does most of the work for you, very very few people will actually be able to use that tool in truly enriching ways. The majority of people (even the smart ones) will weaken over time and take shortcuts.

I think you're framing this behaviour too generously. Laziness is one thing, lack of integrity is another, and this seems to be a straightforward case of cheating and lying.

Re: 2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

#34

Post by jacquesm »

_flux wrote: post #29
linkregister wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a fully consensus view, but a majority of sociologists agree that high severity deterrence has limited effectiveness against crime. Instead, certainty of enforcement is the most salient factor.

But this method is now spent, as if someone is determined on keep using LLM, this should be pretty easy to overcome. I suppose though new methods could be devised, but it's not "certainty" that they will catch them.

That's not true. People still pick up USB sticks from the street, people still fall for scam phone calls and people still click on links in mail.

Just because a method was successful once does not mean it was 'burned', none of these people will be checking each and every future pdf or passing it through a cleaner before they will do the same thing all over again and others are going to be 'virgin' and won't even be warned because this is not going to be widely distributed in spite of us discussing it here.

If anything you can take this as proof that this method is more or less guaranteed to work.

Re: 2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

#35

Post by Tade0 »

grey-area wrote: post #20

Interesting, so someone submitting a paper for review could also submit one with hidden instructions for LLMs to summarise or review it in a very positive light. Given this detection method works so well in the use case of feeding reviewing LLMs instructions, it should also work for the original submitted paper itself, as long as it was passed along with its watermark intact. Even those just using LLMs to summarise c…

> Interesting, so someone submitting a paper for review could also submit one with hidden instructions for LLMs to summarise or review it in a very positive light.

I may or may not know a guy who added several hidden sentences in Finnish to his CV that might have helped him in landing an interview.

Re: 2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

#36

Post by jacquesm »

jjgreen wrote: post #31
jacquesm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very simple solution to this but it is a bit expensive. I run two laptops, one that I talk to an LLM on and another where I do all my work and which is my main machine. The LLM is strictly there in a consulting role, I've done some coding experiments as well (see previous comments) but nothing that stood out to me as a major improvement. The trick is: I can't cut-and-paste between the two machines. So there…

You could ssh in to the "dirty" machine ... just sayin'

Yes, I could. But I've purposefully made linking the two quite hard.

Re: 2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

#37

Post by nurettin »

mikkupikku wrote: post #7
bonoboTP wrote: post #5

To be clear, as the article says, these authors were offered a choice and agreed to be on the "no LLMs allowed" policy. And detection was not done with some snake oil "AI detector" but by invisible prompt injection in the paper pdf, instructing LLMs to put TWO long phrases into the review. They then detected LLM use through checking if both phrases appear in the review. This did not detect grammar checks and touchups…

In that case, I hope these frauds have been banned for life.

What terrible deeds have you done to outburst so harshly?

Re: 2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

#38

Post by quinndupont »

How is nobody considering the broader political economy of scholarly publications and reviews? These are UNPAID reviews! Sure, maybe ICML isn’t Elsevier, but they are cousins to the socially parasitic and exploitative companies, at the very least.

Hiding behind a false “choice” to not use AI or basically not use AI isn’t an appropriate proposal. This is crooked and shameful. We should boycott ICML except we can’t because they are already the gatekeepers!

Re: 2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

#39

Post by quinndupont »

mikkupikku wrote: post #7
bonoboTP wrote: post #5

To be clear, as the article says, these authors were offered a choice and agreed to be on the "no LLMs allowed" policy. And detection was not done with some snake oil "AI detector" but by invisible prompt injection in the paper pdf, instructing LLMs to put TWO long phrases into the review. They then detected LLM use through checking if both phrases appear in the review. This did not detect grammar checks and touchups…

In that case, I hope these frauds have been banned for life.

It’s an unethical, false choice. The reviewers are not perfectly rational agents that do free work, they have real needs and desires. Shame on ICML for exploiting their desperation.

Re: 2% of ICML papers desk rejected because the authors used LLM in their reviews

#40

Post by CoastalCoder »

armchairhacker wrote: post #27
CoastalCoder wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of reasoning interests me because it seems to arise in other contexts as well. Do very harsh punishments significantly reduce future occurrences of the offense in question? I've heard opponents of the death penalty argue that it's generally not the case. E.g., because often the criminals aren't reasoning in terms that factor in the death penalty. On the other hand (and perhaps I'm misinformed), I've heard t…

Is the death penalty scarier than life in prison?

I assume that depends on the individual.

But FWIW, my point was about very harsh punishments in general, not specifically the death penalty.

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