Executive interview: Pros and cons of AI in academic research

“AI [artificial intelligence] can create a 30-page research paper for you out of thin air based on fake science,” warns Jill Luber, chief technology officer at Elsevier. As a publisher of scientific and medical journals and papers, she says: “We’ve seen a major increase in “ fabricated science ” and it is our job to protect the publishing world from that.” It is a topic Luber recently spoke about at the London Book Fair. “It is very worrying, and we’ve seen a major increase in fabricated science,” she says. “Creating and publishing science that’s not real clearly has implications because there’s a level of trust with what you read in scientific journals, and if we start to erode that trust, I think that’s when we’re in real trouble.” Elsevier is around 145 years old, and over that time, it has experienced three major technological disrupters: the printing press, digital content via the internet, and now AI. Putting the fake science warning to one side, Luber believes AI has a significa