Zacharoula Sidiropoulou, Senior Consultant Breast Surgical Oncologist at Hospital São Francisco Xavier, shared on LinkedIn:
“The Good the Bad and the Awful
This is probably going to be one of the most talked-about papers in scientific publishing this week.
JAMA is right to be concerned about AI-generated errors, fabricated references, and loss of accountability in scientific publishing.Though I am less convinced that the answer is mainly more prohibitions and more disclosure requirements.
AI has changed the scale and plausibility of error. That should make us rethink not only what authors are allowed to do, but also how scientific integrity is protected at publication level and what editors should do.
Author responsibility remains fundamental. But responsibility alone is not a safeguard.
The question is not just ‘Did you use AI?’ but ‘Is the science accurate, traceable, verifiable and intellectually yours?’
PS. And what about papers written by pseudo-experts? That problem certainly did not begin with AI; it just got bigger. Authors publishing far outside their competence were always here and JAMA’s own editors got it through a marked rise in Opinion pieces and Letters, sometimes from the same authors, on topics where they have no apparent expertise.
People, the difficulty was never that bad work sounded bad. It is that it now sounds exactly like good work, and I am the one expected to tell the difference, for free, on a Sunday and for a journal that has $6,000 APC per paper…
And, for full transparency issues: I wrote this myself, human, senior researcher, responsible for every word of mine. My AI friend only checked my English and caught a few errors. The sort of editorial polishing I do not pay for an editorial service to do…
The Good: Editors, setting the rules.
The Bad: Authors, under suspicion.
The Awful: Unpaid reviewers, expected to catch what everyone else missed.”
Title: Updated Guidance for Author Use of AI in Medical Publication
Authors: Annette Flanagin, Roy H. Perlis, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo
Read The Full Article.
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