AI-Generated Ghost Authors Contaminate Academic Publishing
A recent study conducted by researchers from Samsung and the University of Warsaw highlights a troubling trend in academic publishing, where AI systems generate fictitious expert names. The preprint titled "The Ghost Couple" points out instances of names like Elena Vasquez and Marcus Chen cropping up across different fields, including geology and computer science. The findings reveal 1,655 entries on Zenodo with these fabricated authors, featuring bogus journal titles and dates but retaining legitimate DOI links, potentially misleading researchers. This phenomenon also affects platforms such as ResearchGate and Google Scholar, raising concerns about the integrity of academic information.
Key facts
- Preprint by Samsung and University of Warsaw identifies AI-generated fake author names
- Names like Elena Vasquez and Marcus Chen appear across hundreds of AI-generated documents
- LLMs produce correlated character ensembles, with certain names appearing together
- 1,655 ghost-authored records found on Zenodo with fabricated journals and dates
- AI-generated papers carry real DOIs, impacting scholarly aggregators
- Ghost names appear on ResearchGate and are indexed by Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar
- Specific names can be traced to specific LLMs, e.g., Elena Vasquez to Claude Sonnet 4
- Arxiv bans authors for a year for submitting AI-generated work
Entities
Artists
- Elena Vasquez
- Marcus Chen
- Elena Amara Okafor
- Aris Thorne
- Lena Petrova
- Elara Voss
- Elias Thorne
- Alex Pretti
Institutions
- Samsung
- University of Warsaw
- CERN
- Zenodo
- ResearchGate
- Google Scholar
- Semantic Scholar
- Arxiv
- Snopes
- 404media