"An analysis of a literature database finds that text-generating artificial intelligence (AI) tools - including ChatGPT and Gemini - can be used to rewrite scientific papers and produce 'copycat' versions that are then passed off as new research. In a preprint posted on medRxiv on 12 September, researchers identified more than 400 such papers published in 112 journals over the past 4.5 years, and demonstrated that AI-generated biomedicine studies could evade publishers' anti-plagiarism checks."
"They focused their search on studies they defined as 'redundant', meaning that the work tested the association between the same variable and health outcome as other research did, but analysed a subtly different subset of the actual data - including results from different survey years, for example, or participants of a different age or sex. Their search of the PubMed index of biomedical literature revealed 411 redundant studies published between January 2021 and July 2025."
Text-generating AI tools, including ChatGPT and Gemini, can rewrite scientific papers into copycat versions that are passed off as new research. More than 400 copycat papers appeared in 112 journals over a 4.5-year period. AI-generated biomedicine studies can evade publishers' anti-plagiarism checks. Individuals and paper mills may exploit publicly available health datasets and large language models to mass-produce low-quality papers lacking scientific value. Screening of association studies based on NHANES data identified 411 redundant studies published between January 2021 and July 2025. Redundant studies tested the same variable-outcome links while analysing subtly different data subsets.
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