ArXiv announces a ban on AI content and the responses are hilarious.

[alicemcalicepants@ohai.social]

@docpop I read at least part of every book in the bibliography of my PhD thesis. Did I do it wrong?

[paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange]

@alicemcalicepants @docpop

no, you did the self-torture that is a key part of a PhD program.

[wuweiwolf@tech.lgbt]

@docpop

- The cited work had an error that required a later correction to be mentioned in an erratum or subsequent article (e.g. fixing a typo in a formula), and the citing researchers were unaware of the correction, so their own work reproduces the same error.
- The cited work had an error that was later corrected, and the citing researchers knew about the correction, but they didn't bother to mention it or cite the later work where the correction appears, so anyone trying to reproduce their results would have no idea that there's an inaccuracy that needs to be corrected.
- The work that should have been cited is out of print and was never digitized, so rather than work with a research library to try to track down a copy and see what it says, the authors either don't double-check what it said, or cite some other work by the same author.

This is a major problem! LLMs are both directly making the problem worse, and encouraging scientists to churn out publications without putting in the work to verify.

[wuweiwolf@tech.lgbt]

@docpop
Unfortunately, I think this is a common attitude in many fields. As someone who has often needed to reproduce other scientists' work, I can confirm that I frequently check other peoples' citations in methodology that turn out to just be wrong. E.g., "As in Smith (2004), we decide the value of parameter X by applying formula Y to input Z." Often I find one of the following:

- The citation does not spell out important details, which have never made it into the scientific record at all, but are spread informally among a particular clique of researchers who frequently collaborate. (Or they are in documentation that was not publicly archived, e.g. internal wikis, proprietary software code, etc.)
- The citation is just to the wrong paper (e.g. the actual source is a different paper by the same author the year before, or the cited paper itself doesn't contain the full details and cites some earlier paper instead).

[quietewe@urbanists.social]

@adriano @docpop @FediThing “perhaps you could speak to your co-authors, my guy”

[abazigal@mastodon.social]

@docpop I almost read it in a sarcastic tone. Would be funny if he was deliberately trying to be contrarian (in a bad way) just to make the OP’s point.

[centdemeern1@eepy.moe]

@docpop@mastodon.social I can't believe anyone ever actually seriously thought they didn't have to look at the things they're citing

[a_cubed@mastodon.social]

@jamesmarshall @docpop
He's wrong. Not everyone does it. He's trying an argumentum ad populum. I'm on the publication ethics committee of a major Comp Sci academic society publisher and we would redact papers with multiple non-existent citations and ban the authors from submitting to our publications for at least a year.
You submit it as your work, you stand byit as valid. Jointly and severally, although we sometimes go easy on student joint authors with faculty (faculty should know better).

[dukeduke@mastodon.social]

@docpop That fucker belongs on Fux News. ""People are saying" means that's good enough for me to cite!"

[linkachus17@furry.engineer]

@docpop Clearly those people never had experience in making research papers or something like that. And that's bad

[jamesmarshall@sfba.social]

@a_cubed @docpop thanks for your comment, very informative. I assume your academic society publisher is international? I'm wondering if this is a US problem.

[heptasean@social.tchncs.de]

@adriano @docpop @FediThing Depending on what is usual in his academic field, his thoughts are maybe less “How the f is he a professor?!?” outlandish than the Fedi commenters here think.

For papers with lots of authors and quite strict division of labour for different parts of the paper and different sub-groups of authors, I can very well see that it maybe has not been usual up to now to know every other author and double check their work.

Still seems net positive to me to reinforce responsibility for things with your name on it.

[carl@chaos.social]

@docpop the responder does not understand Science

[heptasean@social.tchncs.de]

@marta Thank you! I'm also a bit disturbed by the comments here seeing Miller as being _completely_ out of line and ridiculing him for the points raised. His point is more reasonable than the “Why is that guy a professor?!?” mob thinks, but in the end still false in my opinion. Yes, even if you work in a field with papers with lots of authors and quite loose cooperations, you are and should be responsible for papers with your name on it. Laskowski investigating the data manipulation and retracting the papers is a good example for taking that responsibility. @docpop

[congusbongus@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@unchartedworlds @FediThing @docpop so all those Wikipedia nerds adding [citation needed] tags just want more reading material? TIL wow lmao

[liztai@hachyderm.io]

@docpop dafuq isn't that a basic skill

[onnob@mastodon.social]

@docpop jesus, you have to check everything AI writes. Citations or otherwise. And it can be a great help in finding sources, but you have to check everything. By hand. And brain. Yes, all of it.

[zjb@mastodon.social]

哈哈，这个反应也太真实了。学术圈其实很多人都在偷偷用AI写论文，现在arXiv一禁估计要炸锅了。

[heafnerj@mstdn.social]

@ftranschel @docpop Had to look up scnr then it made sense.

[heafnerj@mstdn.social]

@Darkphoenix @docpop There are sometimes physics errors in physics textbooks too.