“Things are clearly moving fast in a bad direction.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
The problem of LLM-generated content in scientific publishing is getting worse quickly.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Gary Marcus wrote it
Marcus on AI, The exponential enshittification of science, paragraph 3.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment marcus-the-exponential-enshittification-48f0fb-a1
We recorded 10 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-29. The source may have been edited after 2024-03-15. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
From the speaker
- moving fast
- in a bad direction
- current scope of the problem
- just in the last couple hours
Our interpretation
- The ordinary reading is that defective or carelessly incorporated AI-generated material was increasing rapidly in scientific publications, not merely that more researchers were using AI.
- I use 2024-01-01 through the post date as the current early-2024 period described by the surrounding examples. Earlier periods provide the comparison baseline.
- Discovering existing examples more quickly does not by itself establish faster publication of defective material.
Counts as supported if: Comparable publication audits show a substantial increase in defective AI-generated content during early 2024 relative to an earlier baseline.
Counts as contradicted if: Comparable audits show that such content was stable or declining during early 2024, with sufficient coverage to detect a substantial increase.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
A large study documents increasing AI-assisted writing through February 2024. That supports the background trend, but it does not establish that defective AI content was increasing rapidly. The evidence retrieved does not settle the claim about worsening publication quality in the period Marcus described.
Limitations
- The result depends on reading the problem as defective content rather than AI use generally.
- Later publication problems cannot establish the early-2024 rate of deterioration.
Evidence (1 item)
Context only: arXiv,
steady increase
Why it matters here: The study analyzes 950,965 papers through February 2024 and establishes increasing LLM modification. It does not measure whether the modified material was erroneous or carelessly incorporated.
- Publisher
- arXiv
- Kind of source
- Preprint, not peer reviewed
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
A dated audit comparing validated AI artifacts or substantive AI-generated errors in early-2024 publications with an earlier period using the same method.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Marcus on AI, The exponential enshittification of science
Things are clearly moving fast in a bad direction.
- Where
- paragraph 3
- Published
- 2024-03-15
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment marcus-the-exponential-enshittification-48f0fb-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment marcus-the-exponential-enshittification-48f0fb-a1.