Debate over the use of artificial intelligence, already touching everything from admissions to grading, has reached peer reviewing, as academics balance technological uncertainty and ethical concerns with potential solutions for persistent peer-review problems.
“We’re seeing the human peer-review system is really stressed,” said James Zou, an assistant professor of biomedical science data at Stanford University. “The number of papers have increased by several-fold over the last few years, and it’s challenging to find a lot of high-quality reviewers who have the time and expertise to review the paper.”
Zou, along with Laurie Schintler, an associate professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, both tackled the potential use of AI in peer review in recent papers. The verdict on the usefulness of the technology: the overlap between human and AI feedback is “comparable,” according to Zou, especially when it comes to less “mature” papers—either those in the early stages or ones that were never published.
Many academics are not thinking of using the technology for peer review just yet, Schintler said, but she expects it will become more widespread.
“I don’t think a lot of people are aware of this trend in using AI in peer review,” she said. “Some colleagues can’t even believe it’s being used at all, but definitely the trend is going in that direction and we’ll see more and more of it.”
While both scholars said they have yet to see AI in peer reviewing take off, scholarly journals and researchers are already trying to get ahead of the curve, laying the groundwork to restrict or outright ban AI in submissions.
Earlier this month, more than a dozen journal editors issued a statement with their own AI guidelines.
“We felt we needed to work out some sort of nuanced line,” said Gregory Kaebnick, editor of the Hastings Center Report and lead on the joint statement. “It’s really alarming stuff, frankly, but at the same time it seems very likely there’s also creative and wonderful uses for AI for scholarly publishing.”
