Litcius/Paper detail

Resisting AI slop

H. Holden Thorp

2026Science6 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF

Abstract

It’s hard to talk about any topic in science or education today without the subject of artificial intelligence (AI) coming up—whether large language models should be allowed to aid in searching for a scientific paper or even to write or review the paper itself. In some of the wildest speculations, the humans involved in conducting scientific studies and experiments and vetting the results for publication will be steadily eliminated from the process. But when such grandiose rhetoric starts flying, we at Science try to keep calm and carry on in contributing to a robust, human-curated research literature that will stand the test of time.

Topics & Concepts

VettingSubject (documents)RhetoricTest (biology)Computer scienceEngineering ethicsScientific literatureScientific writingEnglish languageEngineeringRigourData scienceGenetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical ResearchScientific Computing and Data ManagementResearch Data Management Practices