Elsevier AI summary ‘trashed researcher’s work’ and took weeks to fix
peter.suber's bookmarks 2025-04-29
Summary:
"In March, Williams-Hoffman was surprised to discover that the online version of the paper contained an AI-generated question and answer section immediately below the abstract. She was even more surprised to read its claim that the paper was based on just three measurements, not 51. The AI had apparently confused the methodology of Williams-Hoffman’s study with earlier research she had cited.
This was a serious error, particularly when the relatively new paper had its best prospects of being read, cited and acted on. Three measurements would be nowhere near adequate to support the study’s conclusions, she explained....
Times Higher Education asked the publisher, Elsevier, why the Q&As not been checked for accuracy and why the corresponding author had not been informed of their inclusion or given any ready means of correcting them....
A colleague of Williams-Hoffman, who researches the ecological impacts of bushfires, raised similar mistakes in an AI summary of one of his papers but the editorial department of the journal that published the work never responded. “For the entire time they were live, they were incorrect,” he said."