--- title: "Bombshell Research Finds a Staggering Number of Scientific Papers Were AI-Generated" description: "AI chatbots overuse specific words — and now, scientists are using those words to catch their colleagues when they secretly use it." date: "2025-07-04" modified: "2025-07-04" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/scientific-papers-ai-writing-generated" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "academia" - "ai slop" - "ai writing" - "science journals" --- # Bombshell Research Finds a Staggering Number of Scientific Papers Were AI-Generated ![AI chatbots overuse specific words — and now, scientists are using those words to catch their colleagues when they secretly use it.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Like any crappy human writer, AI chatbots have a tendency to overuse specific words — and now, scientists are using that propensity to catch their colleagues when they secretly use it in their work. As the [*New York Times* reports,]() scientists estimate, based on an analysis of those overused terms, that there could already be hundreds of thousands of academic papers written with the assistance of AI. In a new study published in the [journal *Science Advances*](), researchers from Germany's University of Tübingen identified some 454 words that large language models (LLMs) use frequently — terms like "garnered," "encompassing," and "burgeoning" — and found that anywhere from 13.5 to 40 percent of biomedical article abstracts were written entirely or with assistance from AI. With roughly 1.5 million papers indexed each year on the academic journal database PubMed, that means that at least 200,000 of those papers could have been written with the help of LLMs. That whopping figure may, as the *NYT* notes, be conservative when accounting for any intentional editing of AI-generated text. While some deceptive journal writers take pains to conceal their AI use, others didn't seem to care who knew. In an [example posted on X]() by Arizona State University computer scientist Subbarao Kambhampati, for instance, the "writers" of a low-quality radiology journal left in an acknowledgement that it had been penned by a chatbot. "I'm very sorry," the paper quote reads, "but I don't have access to real time-information or patient-specific data as I am an AI language model." Not all mistakes are going to be that obvious. Unless you're familiar with the term "regenerate response" — an option on ChatGPT that forces the chatbot to rework a shoddy answer — you could easily miss it being sprinkled throughout respected journals, the blog [*Retraction Watch* found]() back in 2023. That same blog also flagged a frustrating debacle involving a paper about millipedes with completely made-up references, which was [initially withdrawn]() from a pre-print server, only to reappear online on a different academic database with those same hallucinated sources. And let's not forget the journal that was [forced to retract a paper]() after observers noticed it was filled with nonsense, including an AI-generated image of a rat with comically gigantic genitals. Complicating matters, academics are taking pains to hide their AI use. As Kambhampati told the *NYT*, academics have even started changing the way they write so their work won't be mistaken for AI, removing terms like "delve" that are overused by LLMs. In the *Science Advances* paper, the Tübingen researchers proffer that all this AI use in academic journals, if corroborated, could be an "unprecedented impact on scientific writing in biomedical research, surpassing the effect of major world events such as the COVID pandemic." To the mind of coauthor Dmitry Kobak, however, the whole thing seems counterintuitive. "I would think for something as important as writing an abstract of your paper," he told the *NYT*, "you would not do that." **More on AI:** [*OpenAI Says It's Hired a Forensic Psychiatrist as Its Users Keep Sliding Into Mental Health Crises*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()