> the content of the papers themselves are not necessarily invalidated. For example, authors may have given an LLM a partial description of a citation and asked the LLM to produce bibtex (a formatted reference)

Maybe I'm overreacting, but this feels like an insanely biased response. They found the one potentially innocuous reason and latched onto that as a way to hand-wave the entire problem away.

Science already had a reproducibility problem, and it now has a hallucination problem. Considering the massive influence the private sector has on the both the work and the institutions themselves, the future of open science is looking bleak.

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orbital-decay 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The wording is not hand-wavy. They said "not necessarily invalidated", which could mean that innocuous reason and nothing extra.

	▲	mikkupikku 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Even if some of those innocuous mistakes happen, we'll all be better off if we accept people making those mistakes as acceptable casualties in an unforgiving campaign against academic fraudsters. It's like arguing against strict liability for drunk driving because maybe somebody accidentally let their grape juice sit to long and they didn't know it was fermented... I can conceive of such a thing, but that doesn't mean we should go easy on drunk driving.
	▲	jklinger410 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I really think it is. The primary function of these publications is to validate science. When we find invalid citations, it shows they're not doing their job. When they get called on that, they cite the volume of work their publication puts out and call out the only potential not-disqualifying outcome. Seems like CYA, seems like hand wave. Seems like excuses.

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paulmist 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Isn't disqualifying X months of potentially great research due to a misformed, but existing reference harsh? I don't think they'd be okay with references that are actually made up.

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jklinger410 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

When your entire job is confirming that science is valid, I expect a little more humility when it turns out you've missed a critical aspect.

How did these 100 sources even get through the validation process?

> Isn't disqualifying X months of potentially great research due to a misformed, but existing reference harsh?

It will serve as a reminder not to cut any corners.

	▲	paulmist an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> When your entire job is confirming that science is valid, I expect a little more humility when it turns out you've missed a critical aspect. I wouldn't call a misformed reference a critical issue, it happens. That's why we have peer reviews. I would contend drawing superficially valid conclusions from studies through use of AI is a much more burning problem that speaks more to the integrity of the author. > It will serve as a reminder not to cut any corners. Or yet another reason to ditch academic work for industry. I doubt the rise of scientific AI tools like AlphaXiv [1], whether you consider them beneficial or detrimental, can be avoided - calling for a level pragmatism.

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zipy124 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Science relies on trust.. a lot. So things which show dishonesty are penalised greatly. If we were to remove trust then peer reviewing a paper might take months of work or even years.

	▲	paulmist an hour ago \| parent [-]
		And that timeline only grows with the complexity of the field in question. I think this is inherently a function of the complexity of the study, and rather than harshly penalizing such shortcomings we should develop tools that address them and improve productivity. AI can speed up the verification of requirements like proper citations, both on the author's and reviewer's side.

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suddenlybananas 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a sign of dishonesty, not a perfect one, but an indicator.