2023/09/15/ai-destroys-principles-of-authorship.-a-scary-case-from-educational-technology-publishing./

[utterances-bot]

AI destroys principles of authorship. A scary case from educational technology publishing. | Prof. Dr. Marco Kalz

I have long waited before I share a special case of AI generated publishing in the field of educational technology which needs a public reflection and review. Approximately 3 months ago, I have received a citation alert which made me curious.

https://kalz.cc/2023/09/15/ai-destroys-principles-of-authorship.-a-scary-case-from-educational-technology-publishing./

[rmconroy]

These people are all based in Dublin City University. I am sure that a formal complaint of plagiarism would stand up and at least have the perpetrators disciplined. This, in turn, could be the basis for Springer pulling this disgusting piece of rubbish.

[mkalz]

This was initially not the way I wanted to go, but after three months of waiting without taking my complaint seriously, this will probably be the way to follow. By the way: This is only one out of approx. 7 books by Springer produced in this way.

[BobSpeth1]

My experience with Springer has been a huge disappointment https://retractionwatch.com/2020/10/14/the-bizarre-anti-vaccine-paper-a-florida-professor-has-been-trying-to-have-retracted-to-no-avail/ In my opinion, their behavior was a disgrace to scientific publishing. Now that they have transferred this journal to Wiley, it is likely that this paper will never be retracted. It is behavior like this that gives biomedical science a black eye, opening the door to misinformationists who use examples like this to discredit biomedical science, thereby jeopardizing human health.

[mkalz]

OMG, thanks Bob for your comment. Seems like "milking the cow" is the only value some publishers are interested in. I can of course not judge the paper itself, but it is shocking to see that this is published already for more than 5 years despite fundamental doubts about its quality. Indeed, this is the body for misinformation which we have faced during the pandemic. I hope that Wiley will take action very soon. What does a COPE membership imply if these cases are just forgotten?

[neumarcx]

Thank you for keeping us up to date here. I am very interested to learn how your official complaint progresses through the institutions, organisations and individuals. It would be great if you could keep continuing to update us here on the developments. FYI I was made aware of this issue by Debora Weber-Wulff https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7111443128565284864/

[mkalz]

I am waiting now for the next steps in this process and will write an update soon including some details on the complaint procedures.

[neumarcx]

I presume you have used the official Heidelberg University letterhead in your communication. What are the next steps? Do you await an official response from DCU? Did you run this by the academic affairs team at Heidelberg University?

[mkalz]

I have indeed used the Heidelberg University of Education letterhead and I have addressed the VP Research at DCU with my letter. I did not involve someone at academic affairs at my institution in this issue. I have received a very fast confirmation of receipt and investigation from VP at DCU. What are next steps? I am waiting for a reply by the institution and also by Springer with regard to a.) the plagiarism and b.) the retraction of the book.

[neumarcx]

Very good, so it sounds like DCU is on top of the issue as expected. May I ask further in regards to the citations you have mentioned these were not published by Springer previously, correct? So whatever has been used by springer and authors was not covered under some agreement between you and Springer prior? This is not yet clear from your description.

[mkalz]

Springer has of course the rights to the original article. I am not talking about any legal aspects here (although publishing text from an article with a CC-license under a commercial rights is clearly also a legal violation). I am just talking about the reuse of our original text without proper quoting and referencing.

[neumarcx]

OK I see very interesting, I am sure this makes the dispute a bit more legalistic in nature. Did you check in the terms and conditions that you haven't lost authorship rights by accepting some form of unsupervised process and repurposing of your content? I am not defending such action by Springer and I still think it invalidates the authorship principles but I like to learn how this affects and will affect authors in the future. We can see such cavalier attitudes (like the move fast and break things mantra) across the board in the current AI hype that of course undermines and erodes the academic model fundamentally.

[neumarcx]

OK now after looking at the machine generated book again I don't see any citation to the original article but I see a citation to your paper published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

[mkalz]

Yes, you are right. The so called editors accidentally forgot to include the original paper as citation but only included the references used in the so-called "summary".

[neumarcx]

any updates on the issue? I am just reading "The Motivation of Manipulating Data and Information to a Desired Outcome" and your issue came back into my focus https://www.2040digital.com/home-2/ideas-and-innovations-newsletter-home-page-explore-all-issues/the-motivation-of-manipulating-data-and-information-to-a-desired-outcome/

[BobSpeth1]

The article "The Motivation of Manipulating Data and Information to a Desired Outcome" is an excellent summary of famous frauds who manipulated data for a desired outcome, not expecting these falsifications to be exposed. I wonder if the propensity of popular AI systems to answer questions with faked information "hallucinating" reflects a motivation on the part of the designers of these popular AI systems to falsely present themselves as omnipotent to addict their users to their cult.

Bob Speth

Robert C. Speth, Ph.D. FAAAS, FAHA (he/his/him) Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences Barry and Judy Silverman College of Pharmacy Nova Southeastern University 3200 S. University Dr. Fort Lauderdale, FL 33328-2018 Nova Southeastern University Provost's Research and Scholarship Awardee - 2016 Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance "World Class Faculty" Awardee - 2017

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any updates on the issue? I am just reading "The Motivation of Manipulating Data and Information to a Desired Outcome" and your issue came back into my focus https://www.2040digital.com/home-2/ideas-and-innovations-newsletter-home-page-explore-all-issues/the-motivation-of-manipulating-data-and-information-to-a-desired-outcome/

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[neumarcx]

Indeed, having worked in academia and the information technology industry for many years I have to conclude that this is unfortunately an intrinsic feature of the activity. I also believe that we have to be extra vigilant when the topic is introduced to the arena of education and science. As AI is not itself a science many of our scientific methodologies and evaluation strategies are seemingly invalidated or simply overwhelmed with data. A situation that can easily lead to a crisis of truth. AI protagonists should not be allowed to simply hide behind and exploit perceived complexity as a shield. Also, students and researchers need to be protected as well as the evaluation of these tools is still in its infancy. Transparency is of utmost importance now given the timing.

[neumarcx]

any updates on the issue?

[mkalz]

https://kalz.cc/2024/03/08/a-plagiarised-edtech-book-and-nobody-cares/

[neumarcx]

https://kalz.cc/2024/03/08/a-plagiarised-edtech-book-and-nobody-cares/

Thank You for the update Marco. A very unsatisfactory situation for authors. But it's an evolving story that just doesn't have a enough "ground swell" yet. You may have read the story in the Atlantic already there are hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books that have been used to train these so called "AI" systems. [1]

Some even estimate up to 4 million books (mostly with copyright) went into these products that are owned, controlled by or aligned with large corporate entities. [2]

I think it would make sense to declare this officially a research topic it's such a significant change in attitude in the community that we may consider this a massive paradigm shift in intellectual copyright or a period of great injustice. But it is certainly an important topic.

Could you not take a leadership position here in the EU (maybe in collaboration with other critical organisations) to discuss this in a more strategic fashion?

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/books3-database-generative-ai-training-copyright-infringement/675363/

2. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/schriftstellerin-nina-george-gaensehaut-kann-ki-nicht-19562529.html