Unfortunately, as with filesystem dates, git dates are trivially modified. I don't even think writing such a tool would be difficult either - space out the comm

Unfortunately, as with filesystem dates, git dates are trivially modified. I don't even think writing such a tool would be difficult either - space out the commits semi-randomly within the time of day you might be writing, add a few paragraphs each time (potentially in different sections), occasionally go back and rewrite a sentence or two. It's not proof of anything, but then what do we need to prove that yes, I really wrote this myself? A record of every keystroke and mouse click? A recording of my screen while writing? A recording of my webcam while writing? All seem either fakeable today or very soon. I'm probably just not smart enough but I can't figure out how to truly prove your (human) authorship. To some extent though I'm also not sure how much it matters. If the science is sound, the text is well written, and the paper is well presented, why do I care who wrote the text? I didn't handwrite the graphs or the tables of data, that was a script. Nor did I typeset every letter, that was LaTeX. The text isn't even any different in nature, like the difference between an original oil painting and a print of the same. It's ultimately just a means to communicate ideas from my mind to yours. Perhaps it is ethical to disclose the use of generative AI, but I'm not convinced that would be any better in the minds of the reviewers in question here. I just don't see a substantiative difference if the end product ultimately is high quality. For what it's worth, I wasn't a great student (good at learning, yes, good at going through the motions to get good grades, not so much) and despite what some might call an academic approach to most problems I'm not really a fan of academia itself. There's a lot of stuffy old practices, like p-value being the metric for so many things despite the knowledge that it can be "hacked", and weird, unknowable financial or political motives that you'll never be privy to, which in my opinion compromise the integrity of the work more than use of generative AI does while also being harder to detect. I'm certainly not the first to point these issues and I won't be the one to solve it. I do wonder though if the whole thing is kinda broken, ChatGPT or not.