Category: LLM

Guest post: Forget pickles and ice cream. I published a fake paper on pregnancy cravings for prime numbers

Image generated by Google Gemini

I had grown weary of the constant stream and abuse of spam invitations to submit manuscripts to journals and to attend fake conferences on the other side of the world, a trend extensively studied in academia. The last straw: a solicitation from the Clinical Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, well outside my work in mathematics education.

Accepting the challenge, I decided to submit a deliberately nonsensical, AI-generated manuscript in response to observe how the individuals behind these supposed journals operate.

In October 2025, I wrote to someone named Henry Jackson, who had sent the article invitation in August (despite the fact that no such person is listed on the journal’s website). I sent a manuscript generated entirely by ChatGPT to test how far a publication created with zero genuine effort could go and whether there was any filtering mechanism in place to prevent a meaningless article from being published. 

Continue reading Guest post: Forget pickles and ice cream. I published a fake paper on pregnancy cravings for prime numbers

AI-Reddit study leader gets warning as ethics committee moves to ‘stricter review process’

University of Zurich

The university ethics committee that reviewed a controversial study that deployed AI-generated posts on a Reddit forum made recommendations the researchers did not heed, Retraction Watch has learned. 

The principal investigator on the study has received a formal warning, and the university’s ethics committees will implement a more rigorous review process for future studies, a university official said.

As we reported yesterday, researchers at the University of Zurich tested whether a large language model, or LLM, can persuade people to change their minds by posting messages on the Reddit subforum r/ChangeMyView (CMV). The moderators of the forum notified the subreddit about the study and their interactions with the researchers in a post published April 26. 

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Experiment using AI-generated posts on Reddit draws fire for ethics concerns

Note: We’ve published a new story with the University of Zurich’s response, as well as comments from Reddit’s chief legal officer.

An experiment deploying AI-generated messages on a Reddit subforum has drawn criticism for, among other critiques, a lack of informed consent from unknowing participants in the community. 

The university overseeing the research is standing by its approval of the study, but has indicated the principal investigator has received a warning for the project. 

The subreddit, r/ChangeMyView (CMV), invites people to post a viewpoint or opinion to invite conversation from different perspectives. Its extensive rules are intended to keep discussions civil. 

Continue reading Experiment using AI-generated posts on Reddit draws fire for ethics concerns