AI: A boon or a tool for research misconduct

In February this year, Google announced it was launching ‘a new AI system for scientists’. It said this system was a collaborative tool designed to help scientists “in creating novel hypotheses and research plans”.

- Jon Whittle Stefan Harrer

It’s too early to tell just how useful this particular tool will be to scientists. But what is clear is that artificial intelligence (AI) more generally is already transforming science.

Last year, for example, computer scientists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing an AI model to predict the shape of every protein known to mankind. Chair of the Nobel Committee, Heiner Linke, described the AI system as the achievement of a “50-year-old dream” that solved a notoriously difficult problem eluding scientists since the 1970s.

But while AI is allowing scientists to make technological breakthroughs that are otherwise decades away or out of reach entirely, there’s also a darker side to the use of AI in science: scientific misconduct is on the rise.

AI makes it easy to fabricate research. Academic papers can be retracted if their data or findings are found to no longer be valid.

This can happen because of data fabrication, plagiarism or human error. Paper retractions are increasing exponentially, passing 10,000 in 2023. These retracted papers were cited over 35,000 times. One study found eight per cent of Dutch scientists admitted to serious research fraud, double the rate previously reported. Biomedical paper retractions have quadrupled in the past 20 years, the majority due to misconduct.