AI is investing academic papers that don’t exist — and they’re being cited in real journals

As the fall semester came to a close, Andrew Heiss, an assistant professor in the Department of Public Management and Policy at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, was grading coursework from his students when he noticed something alarming.

As is typical for educators these days, Heiss was following up on citations in papers to make sure that they led to real sources — and weren’t fake references supplied by an AI chatbot. Naturally, he caught some of his pupils using generative artificial intelligence to cheat: not only can the bots help write the text, they can supply alleged supporting evidence if asked to back up claims, attributing findings to previously published articles. But, as with attorneys who have been caught generating briefs with AI because a model offered false legal precedents, students can end up with plausible-sounding footnotes pointing to academic articles and journals that don’t exist.