[IRTalk] AI Slop Is Flooding Academic Journals. A Top Journal Measured It

[Ina Smith]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndrake/2026/04/30/ai-slop-is-flooding-academic-journals-a-top-journal-measured-it/

The term “AI slop” usually describes the low-quality images and text that clutter social media feeds. It has now reached the peer review system that governs what counts as scientific knowledge.
Submissions to Organization Science, one of the top journals in management research, have risen 42% since the launch of ChatGPT. The writing has gotten worse.
A new study<https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2026.ed.v37.n3> from the journal’s editorial team finds that AI-generated manuscripts are harder to read, more jargon laden and more likely to be rejected than those written by humans. Meanwhile, over 30% of the expert peer reviews that journals routinely use to decide what to publish now show detectable AI use, and editors report that those reviews are essentially uninformative.
The technology that was supposed to make science more productive is, for the moment, making it harder to evaluate. Undoubtedly, this is a snapshot of a system in transition, not a permanent verdict on AI in research. But the snapshot is worth a close look.



Ina Smith

Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)



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