How AI slop is causing a crisis in computer science

4 min read Original article ↗
  • NEWS

Preprint repositories and conference organizers are having to counter a tide of ‘AI slop’ submissions.

By

  1. Elizabeth Gibney

Access through your institution

Fifty-four seconds. That’s how long it took Raphael Wimmer to write up an experiment that he did not actually perform, using a new artificial-intelligence tool called Prism, released by OpenAI last month. “Writing a paper has never been easier. Clogging the scientific publishing pipeline has never been easier,” wrote Wimmer, a researcher in human–computer action at the University of Regensburg in Germany, on Bluesky.

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

$32.99 / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

$199.00 per year

only $3.90 per issue

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03967-9

References

  1. Kusumegi, K. et al. Science 390, 1240–1243 (2025).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Zhang, P. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2508.15126 (2025).

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs