About
Academ-AI documents the adverse effects of artificial intelligence (AI) in academia, particularly suspected instances of AI being used to author research without appropriate declaration.
The articles listed on this site have been identified based on phrases that strongly suggest AI use (highlighted in each quoted passage). If you believe that an article has been wrongly included, please let me know at acai@academ-ai.info.
If you suspect the use of AI in a published research article, please reach out with:
- The citation (in any style); please include a URL or DOI if possible
- The passage(s) that appear to be AI-generated
- Your name if you wish to be credited for your contribution
At present, I am documenting journal articles and conference papers/proceedings only. Books, book chapters, preprints, blog posts, and other media are out of scope at least for the time being.
What to look for
The contributions of a chatbot can often be identified by the use of key phrases, such as:
As of my last knowledge update…
As an AI language model…
Chatbot responses can also be identified by their conversational style, which does not fit in with academic prose. Elements of chatbot style include:
- Liberal use of first-person singular pronouns
- Use of discourse markers, such as “certainly”
As a consequence of the developers’ attempts to prevent harmful output, chatbots are often verbosely conservative, generating multiple sentences explaining why they cannot do as asked. Examples include:
- Explaining that they have no access to certain data
- Referring the user to experts in the relevant field
- Offering alternative subject matter that the bot could discuss
Metadata
Publications are cited using the metadata provided by the publisher even where implausible. For example, Narayanan (2014) refers to a “knowledge update in January 2022” despite alleged publication eight years prior.1 Since the purpose of Academ-AI is to highlight publishing oversights, no attempt will be made to resolve these errors.
Categories
I assign one or more subject categories, based on the top level of the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) system, to each article listed according to my own best judgement.
- general works
- philosophy, psychology, and religion
- auxiliary sciences of history
- world history
- history of the Americas
- local history of the Americas
- geography, anthropology, and recreation
- social sciences
- political sciencce
- law
- education
- music
- fine arts
- language and literature
- science
- medicine
- agriculture
- technology
- military science
- naval science
- library and information science
Publication types
Each article is classified as:
- Journal—journal articles
- Conference—conference papers and proceedings
Post-publication changes
Where an erratum (retraction, corrigendum, or other editorial correction) related to the undeclared use of AI has been published, the article is labeled with type of erratum and the date of its publication. Occasionally, publishers appear to have retroactively corrected LLM-induced errors without informing readers. These instances are marked as “stealth revision.” Since determining when exactly a stealth revision occurred is often impossible, no date is provided for stealth revisions. Errata that do not concern the undeclared use of AI are not listed.
Indexing
Articles published in journals known to be included in widely used indices, such as Web of Science, are labeled as such. These labels are a work-in-progress. However, to my knowledge, every article indexed in the following databases has been labeled as such:
- Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ)
- Dimensions
- Medline
- PubMed Central
- Scopus
- Web of Science
ISSNs
The ISSNs of all journals that have them are included in each article’s metadata. All ISSNs have been validated using the ISSN portal; where ISSNs were found to be invalid, unreported, provisional, or registered to a different journal, this finding is also noted in the article metadata.
ISBNs
The ISBNs of all conference papers that have them are included in each paper’s metadata.
Similar projects
Other researchers, notably Dr. Guillaume Cabanac (Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse), have compiled examples of undeclared AI. The list of such papers on Retraction Watch, based on Dr. Cabanac’s search strategy, was used to identify many of the items listed on this website.
About me
I am Alex Glynn, MA, Research Literacy and Communications Instructor at the Kornhauser Health Sciences Library, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States of America. I previously worked for three years at the University’s School of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, where I was appointed Managing Editor for the Division’s Journal of Respiratory Infections until my departure in August 2023.
My work has been published in Accountability in Research, Intelligent Pharmacy, the Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia, and others. I have lectured on AI, as well as other topics, at the University of Louisville and served on multiple AI steering committees.
Academ-AI is not owned, controlled, or endorsed by the University of Louisville. Any opinions presented are mine alone and do not represent the opinions or positions of the University.
Logo
The Ac-AI berry is based on a vector icon generated by Google Gemini.
