<story><title>AI intensifies fight against ‘paper mills’ that churn out fake research</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01780-w</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>huijzer</author><text>Instead of fighting against &amp;quot;paper mills&amp;quot;, let’s fight against journals. There are strong arguments against the need for peer-review for example [1]. Science does not get worse when there are more bad papers, science gets better when there are more good papers. Most papers in AI aren’t even reviewed by peers or editor and guess what: we have lots of progress happening. I’m not saying that is because the lack of review, I’m saying that reviews are not necessary for progress. Furthermore, was the iPhone good because it was reviewed by a board of &amp;quot;independent&amp;quot; reviewers? No it wasn’t. Let’s just ignore Nature. Good papers are good because they have good arguments and if they are not good, then time will tell. Papers are not good simply because Nature (TM) put a stamp on it.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.experimental-history.com&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;science-is-a-strong-link-problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.experimental-history.com&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;science-is-a-strong-l...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>webnrrd2k</author><text>Re: &amp;quot;Science does not get worse when there are more bad papers&amp;quot;...&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think that this is true at all. Weeding through bad papers is, at a minimum, an opportunity cost, as is a good paper built on top of a bad one.&lt;p&gt;Also, there is a societal cost in that bad research can get picked up and believed by people, like the anti-vax crowd. Or, bad research can be used to push an agenda, like anti-climate change.</text></comment>
<story><title>AI intensifies fight against ‘paper mills’ that churn out fake research</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01780-w</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>huijzer</author><text>Instead of fighting against &amp;quot;paper mills&amp;quot;, let’s fight against journals. There are strong arguments against the need for peer-review for example [1]. Science does not get worse when there are more bad papers, science gets better when there are more good papers. Most papers in AI aren’t even reviewed by peers or editor and guess what: we have lots of progress happening. I’m not saying that is because the lack of review, I’m saying that reviews are not necessary for progress. Furthermore, was the iPhone good because it was reviewed by a board of &amp;quot;independent&amp;quot; reviewers? No it wasn’t. Let’s just ignore Nature. Good papers are good because they have good arguments and if they are not good, then time will tell. Papers are not good simply because Nature (TM) put a stamp on it.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.experimental-history.com&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;science-is-a-strong-link-problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.experimental-history.com&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;science-is-a-strong-l...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eldaisfish</author><text>This line of thinking is dangerous and ignores very real problems as the other comments point out.&lt;p&gt;Instead of targeting peer-review, i recommend approaching this problem as one of incentives. Under the current system, what is the incentive for a reviewer to read and critique a paper? None. If they were paid in cash, there is a clear incentive. The publishers do not want this overheard and the associated legal requirements so they seek out &amp;quot;volunteers&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;compensate&amp;quot; them with rubbish like book copies and &amp;quot;reputation&amp;quot;. The fault is with publishers, not the peer-review process.&lt;p&gt;At the moment, the current model allows parasites like Elsevier to derive the maximum benefit while not paying most folks involved in creating the actual value - the reviewers, editors and authors.&lt;p&gt;Citizen journalism tried this, failed and is now hollowing out established journalism. We need proper funding and proper incentives for journalism just as we need proper incentives for academic research.</text></comment>