AI Slop Is Spurring Record Requests for Imaginary Journals

The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that artificial intelligence models are making up research papers, journals and archives

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-slop-is-spurring-record-requests-for-imaginary-journals/

“The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released its quadrennial report on World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development. What follows is a lightly-adapted version of the contribution on climate disinformation I was invited and honored to make. It seems especially salient towards the end of 2025, in which the Trump administration has removed access to climate information, replaced it with disinformation, derailed the National Climate Assessment, ignored and fired a broad range of experts, and sought to undermine public trust in the utility of expertise. As the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change in the Context of Human Rights has put it, “protecting the right to science is a collective imperative” that is undermined by disinformation.

One bright spot from COP30 was the launch of the Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change, which 20 countries from Austria to Uruguay have now signed. Here’s to a 2026 in which we continue to fight for that right, ever more effectively, together. ”