3 ms·

That would fail, humans and agents could create new “author” accounts by the swarm or have paid author accounts.

by doc_ick 12d ago

malfist 12d ago
Do you imagine a world where people are willing to go through the legal hassle of changing their name to get past a ban for low effort journal submissions?
- doc_ick 12d ago
  Legal names aren’t 1:1 with author names. If they were, who’d verify that?
  - otterley 12d ago
    Validating someone’s association with an institution by name seems like a reasonable thing to do. Perhaps it wasn’t done in the past, but times and circumstances have changed. Trust in authorship is lower than ever, and for good reason.
    - doc_ick 12d ago
      It likely is, but that’s also on the assumption every author has to be in association with an institution and it’s quick to verify that. What good reason is there for trust in authorship to be low? I would likely agree for if it’s related to llm-slop.
      - otterley 12d ago
        Plagiarism, fictional data, and unreproducible results have been a problem for a some time, and LLMs are now increasingly standing in authors’ shoes. In a system that rewards production over all else, people are naturally going to be incentivized to cut corners. Some cultures that are increasingly participating in the scientific process don’t even agree as to what the ethical boundaries are.
        doc_ick 12d ago
        True, and thanks to llms are of those are being “exploited” exponentially more. “In a system that rewards production over all else, people are naturally going to be incentivized to cut corners.” That sounds like the human condition and or capitalism, advancements in cars, weapons, toys, etc… The agreement on ethical boundaries seems like a conversation held at a conference level, otherwise place a governs place b and that never goes well. I agree fully replicable experiments is a minimum for research papers. Even with caveats it should be required. That being said those who don’t want to fully prove their claims will find another venue. I think frontier models should curb or have provably verified output (chatgpt did say x) for the majority cases to help reduce or help identify the slop.
        otterley 12d ago
        > That sounds like the human condition and or capitalism, advancements in cars, weapons, toys, etc… Indeed it is! That's why we set up rules of the game/road/etc. that we expect participants to adhere to, and impose sanctions when they don't. We're in that uncomfortable place today where we're trying to figure out how our rules should adapt to this new era. Life is messy.
        doc_ick 12d ago
        Oh no I fully agree with that. We just have to find a medium that people can easily use but can’t abuse. The constant cat and mouse security problem given non-infinite money. In-person defense would solve this but I think the cost is too high.
  - malfist 12d ago
    Even if it's not a legal name, are you going to review the CV of an applicant who used a different name on every publication they claim authorship of? It's going to be pretty obvious someone is being nefarious
    - doc_ick 12d ago
      The CV of an applicant is definitely different. For a job application where a cv were used, that’s a slower/paid process where attention should be paid to details. However what’s a difference to a conference with a “young upcoming author” vs llm-Lorem ipsum author name?
wpietri 11d ago
What's the motivation to do that? Academic fraud is about building up a name.
- doc_ick 11d ago
  Could you please expand? I don’t believe I understand the question.
  - wpietri 11d ago
    You said that people could do a thing. I'm asking why they would. Academic fraud is done to boost the reputation of the academic. There isn't a lot of point in academic fraud with one paper on each of 50 fake names.
    - doc_ick 11d ago
      Ahhhh, that makes more sense. Academic fraud may not always be used to boost the reputation of an academic, it could boost the reputation of a science/technique/medicine. If you see 30 authors with 1,000s of citations saying x is superior and 3 authors saying y is superior, from a quick glance x seems a lot better. Edit: see medical studies

That would fail, humans and agents could create new “author” accounts by the swarm or have paid author accounts.

by doc_ick 12d ago

That would fail, humans and agents could create new “author” accounts by the swarm or have paid author accounts.

Do you imagine a world where people are willing to go through the legal hassle of changing their name to get past a ban for low effort journal submissions?

doc_ick 12d ago
Legal names aren’t 1:1 with author names. If they were, who’d verify that?
- otterley 12d ago
  Validating someone’s association with an institution by name seems like a reasonable thing to do. Perhaps it wasn’t done in the past, but times and circumstances have changed. Trust in authorship is lower than ever, and for good reason.
  - doc_ick 12d ago
    It likely is, but that’s also on the assumption every author has to be in association with an institution and it’s quick to verify that. What good reason is there for trust in authorship to be low? I would likely agree for if it’s related to llm-slop.
    - otterley 12d ago
      Plagiarism, fictional data, and unreproducible results have been a problem for a some time, and LLMs are now increasingly standing in authors’ shoes. In a system that rewards production over all else, people are naturally going to be incentivized to cut corners. Some cultures that are increasingly participating in the scientific process don’t even agree as to what the ethical boundaries are.
      - doc_ick 12d ago
        True, and thanks to llms are of those are being “exploited” exponentially more. “In a system that rewards production over all else, people are naturally going to be incentivized to cut corners.” That sounds like the human condition and or capitalism, advancements in cars, weapons, toys, etc… The agreement on ethical boundaries seems like a conversation held at a conference level, otherwise place a governs place b and that never goes well. I agree fully replicable experiments is a minimum for research papers. Even with caveats it should be required. That being said those who don’t want to fully prove their claims will find another venue. I think frontier models should curb or have provably verified output (chatgpt did say x) for the majority cases to help reduce or help identify the slop.
        otterley 12d ago
        > That sounds like the human condition and or capitalism, advancements in cars, weapons, toys, etc… Indeed it is! That's why we set up rules of the game/road/etc. that we expect participants to adhere to, and impose sanctions when they don't. We're in that uncomfortable place today where we're trying to figure out how our rules should adapt to this new era. Life is messy.
        doc_ick 12d ago
        Oh no I fully agree with that. We just have to find a medium that people can easily use but can’t abuse. The constant cat and mouse security problem given non-infinite money. In-person defense would solve this but I think the cost is too high.
- malfist 12d ago
  Even if it's not a legal name, are you going to review the CV of an applicant who used a different name on every publication they claim authorship of? It's going to be pretty obvious someone is being nefarious
  - doc_ick 12d ago
    The CV of an applicant is definitely different. For a job application where a cv were used, that’s a slower/paid process where attention should be paid to details. However what’s a difference to a conference with a “young upcoming author” vs llm-Lorem ipsum author name?

wpietri 11d ago

What's the motivation to do that? Academic fraud is about building up a name.

doc_ick 11d ago
Could you please expand? I don’t believe I understand the question.
- wpietri 11d ago
  You said that people could do a thing. I'm asking why they would. Academic fraud is done to boost the reputation of the academic. There isn't a lot of point in academic fraud with one paper on each of 50 fake names.
  - doc_ick 11d ago
    Ahhhh, that makes more sense. Academic fraud may not always be used to boost the reputation of an academic, it could boost the reputation of a science/technique/medicine. If you see 30 authors with 1,000s of citations saying x is superior and 3 authors saying y is superior, from a quick glance x seems a lot better. Edit: see medical studies