The Editor Got a Letter From ‘Dr. B.S.’ So Did a Lot of Other Editors.

November 5, 2025

Several stacks of papers

(New York Times) – The rise of artificial intelligence has produced serial writers to science and medical journals, most likely using chatbots to boost the number of citations they’ve published.

Letters to the editor from writers using chatbots are flooding the world’s scientific journals, according to new research and journal editors.

The practice is putting at risk a part of scientific publishing that editors say is needed to sharpen research findings and create new directions for inquiry.

A new study on the problem started with a tropical disease specialist who had a weird experience with a chatbot-written letter. He decided to figure out just what was going on and who was submitting all those letters. (Read More)