913
how things become science (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01100-y

https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:s6yp6jam5og3tftozaw7pjth/post/3mj34sn6kyk25

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[–] 27 points 7 months ago (11 children)

Wouldn't humans do the same thing if someone literally writes lies on the internet?

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  • [–] 33 points 7 months ago* (7 children)

    If it were convincing lies made to deceive, then sure. But in this case the papers were deliberately made to be immediately obviously fake, to anyone actually reading them.

    So I guess the question would be "would humans do the same thing if someone literally writes obvious jokes on the internet?"

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  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago

    More shockingly, three Indian researchers published a research paper that cited the preprint on the fake disease in Cureus, a peer-reviewed journal published by Springer. It was subsequently retracted.

    lol

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bohannon#Intentionally_misleading_chocolate_study

    Yes, people would exactly do the same, because nobody reads anything but the headline of a paper. Even journalists don't.

    AI didn't invent the problem, but it put the problem on steroids.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Even journalists don't

    Not sure what point your making here, I wouldn't expect most journalists to be great at reading the details of papers like this...

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago

    Research and fact checking is what separates journalists from hacks.
    "Journalist" implies factual information, not science fiction. If someone writes a "news" story about the magic land of Xanth because they can't tell the difference between a Piers Anthony novel and a scientific study it's not Piers Anthony's fault for being too "tricky".

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    Vetting sources is the one thing we need journalists for. If they don't vet their sources, their work is without merit.

    Reading at least the methodology section of a paper and googling if the researchers and the institute exists, is the bare minimum of what a decent journalist should do.

    If they can't do that, then there's no advantage of a journalist over some random person posting on Facebook. Even Youtubers usually vet their sources better.

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  • [–] 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Absolutely! Once false information is out there it can't be retracted even if the article itself is retracted. Bumblebees can't fly and vaccines cause autism are good examples of that. The only difference i can imagine is that LLMs have a much larger reach and may spread shit faster

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