AI Likely Driving Surge in Letters to the Editor

"Researchers and scientific journals can add a new possibility to a growing list of artificial intelligence-generated horrors: letters to the editor. Two days after researchers published a paper on the efficacy of ivermectin as a treatment for malaria in the New England Journal of Medicine this summer, the journal received a letter to the editor from another researcher criticizing the paper's findings."

""It seemed well written at first, but then there were these strange comments, and they referred to other papers that seemed to refute our work," Matthew Rudd, co-author of the paper and associate professor of mathematics at the University of the South in Tennessee, told Inside Higher Ed. "But those papers were written by [my co-author], and they do not refute our work.""

""It turns out it was two authors, and one of them had published zero letters ever in his life. Then, suddenly this year, he has published-not submitted-84," Chaccour told Inside Higher Ed. "That's crazy. In my whole career, I have published 84 papers and probably two or three letters to the editor.""

Artificial intelligence can generate convincing letters to the editor that impersonate researchers. Two days after a paper on ivermectin for malaria appeared in NEJM, a critical letter was received that appeared legitimate. Closer inspection showed the letter referenced other papers that were actually authored by the paper's co-author and did not refute the work. One correspondent had suddenly published an unusually large number of letters—84 in a year—across many journals, suggesting automated or fraudulent behavior. Such patterns can bypass editorial scrutiny, mislead authors and readers, and risk corrupting post-publication scientific debate.

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