AI-Generated Fake Papers Tested Against IEEE Access Defenses
IEEE Spectrum documented an experiment in which free versions of ChatGPT and Gemini generated a paper describing research that was never performed, while Analemma’s FARS system produced a second paper describing AI-conducted computational research. IEEE Access screened both papers with the publisher’s cooperation; neither was accepted, peer reviewed, or independently validated, though the papers exposed flaws such as fabricated citations and nonsensical figure artifacts. The report also cited estimates that detectable LLM influence reached 57% of academic articles in 2025, up from 12% in 2023, while emphasizing that detectable AI use does not by itself establish low-quality “AI slop.”
The screened experiment demonstrates the current limits of publisher defenses and suggests that academic integrity systems must distinguish authentic research from plausible AI-generated material without shifting all verification work onto volunteer reviewers.
Science has a spam problem. And the spam filter is getting clogged up.
According to all reports, academic publishing is drowning in what has come to be called AI slop: low-quality, mass-produced content generated with AI. By 2025, an estimated 57 percent of all published academic articles exhibited detectable evidence of large language model (LLM) influence, a massive jump from 12 percent in 2023. What’s more, over 12 percent of Nature Communications reviews were found to be completely AI-generated in 2025.
Given that for every 40 papers showing statistical evidence of AI usage in 2025, only one formally disclosed it, these figures likely grossly underestimate LLM involvement today. Of course, evidence of AI use doesn’t necessarily mean a paper is slop. But some estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of fake, often AI-generated, publications are now produced annually.
#IEEE Access#IEEE#ChatGPT#Gemini#FARS#Analemma#Nature Communications