Publisher Under Fire After ‘Fake’ Citations Found in AI Ethics Guide
One of the world’s largest academic publishers is facing scrutiny for selling a book on the ethics of artificial intelligence research that appears to be riddled with fake citations, including references to journals that do not exist.
Concerns Over Academic Integrity
Academic publishing has recently come under fire for accepting fraudulent papers produced using AI, which have made it through a peer-review process intended to maintain high standards. A report by The Times revealed that a book published by the German-British publishing giant Springer Nature contains dozens of citations that seem to have been invented—a common indication of AI-generated material.
The Problematic Book
The book, titled Social, Ethical and Legal Aspects of Generative AI, is marketed as an authoritative review of the ethical dilemmas posed by the technology and is priced at £125. Disturbingly, at least two chapters include footnotes that cite scientific publications that cannot be verified. In one chapter, 8 of the 10 citations could not be confirmed, suggesting that 80 percent may have been fabricated.
AI Hallucination in Academia
There is growing anxiety within academic circles regarding citations and entire research papers being generated by AI tools that aim to mimic authentic scholarly work. In April, Springer Nature had to withdraw another title, Mastering Machine Learning: From Basics to Advanced, after it was discovered to contain numerous fictitious references.
Expert Analysis
In the book analyzed by The Times, one citation claims to refer to a paper published in the “Harvard AI Journal,” a journal that Harvard Business Review has confirmed does not exist. Guillaume Cabanac, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Toulouse, employed a tool called BibCheck to scrutinize two chapters. His analysis revealed that at least 11 of 21 citations in the first chapter could not be matched to known academic papers, and similarly, 8 of the 10 citations in chapter four were untraceable.
“This is research misconduct: falsification and fabrication of references,” Cabanac stated, noting a steady increase in AI “hallucinated” citations across academic literature. He emphasized the critical need for reliable references, stating, “When [these studies] are fragile or rotten, we can’t build anything robust on top of that.”
Additional Findings
A separate review by Dr. Nathan Camp of New Mexico State University corroborated Cabanac’s findings, reporting numerous erroneous, mismatched, or entirely fabricated references in the AI ethics book. Some citations combined details from genuine papers, while six chapters appeared to be accurate. Each chapter was authored by different contributors.
Camp noted, “While it is difficult to definitively ascertain whether or not the citations used are AI-generated, they are certainly erroneous at best, likely fabricated, and the simplest way to fabricate citations is with AI.”
Publisher’s Response
James Finlay, vice-president for applied sciences books at Springer Nature, stated, “We take any concerns about the integrity of our published content seriously. Our specialist research integrity team is prioritizing this investigation.” He added that while their integrity team works diligently with editors and utilizes specialist expertise and detection tools to maintain standards, a small number of issues may still slip through the cracks.
