Oxford's Yarin Gal calls for handwritten papers, LLM only as reviewer, sparking debate

Oxford professor Yarin Gal posted on September 22 his concern about ML paper writing quality: an increasing number of papers show homogeneous, hollow language. He stressed that scientific writing exists to convey ideas, that the developers of those ideas are humans, and that model-generated language should not replace genuine thought — leading to a concrete policy proposal and a follow-up debate.

Confirmed

Gal observed growing homogeneous, empty language in ML papers.
He proposed written academic policies: paper text must be written by the researchers themselves, with LLMs used only as review aids, e.g. asking "where is this vague."
Gal speculated most LLM-written papers will not stand the test of time, partly due to bias against the writing style; the quoted poster added such papers are uncomfortable to read.
On September 23, Thomas Dietterich challenged whether the concern targets only writing, asking whether LLM-assisted theorem proving counts; when he asked how much LLM use makes a paper "LLM-written," Gal replied: "Any text written by an LLM."

Why it matters

The exchange highlights the ongoing dispute over LLM disclosure norms in academia: Gal's zero-tolerance stance offers a clear but strict reference for journals and conferences drafting writing policies.
Dietterich's pushback exposes the boundary problem of whether writing style and substantive contributions (e.g. LLM-assisted proofs) should be treated differently — no consensus yet.

2026-09-22 ~ 2026-09-23 · 5 related posts

Full story(5 episodes)→

Episode 1: Oxford's Yarin Gal calls for handwritten papers, LLM only as reviewer, sparking debate(2026-09-22, 5 posts)
Episode 2: Oxford Researcher Proposes LLM Rules: Reviewer, Not Author(2026-09-22, 2 posts)
Episode 3: Oxford's Yarin Gal: LLMs are poor at real science without scaffolding(2026-09-23, 3 posts)
Episode 4: Researchers Propose Banning LLM-Written Papers on arXiv(2026-09-23, 4 posts)
Episode 5: Oxford's Yarin Gal: Irreproducible LLM Experiments Are Just Bad Experiments(2026-09-23, 2 posts)

Primary sources

Yarin Gal warns of homogenized, vacuous language creeping into ML papers — yaringal · 2026-09-22 19:34 (UTC+08:00)
Dietterich pushes back on LeCun's claim that LLM-written papers won't stand the test of time — tdietterich · 2026-09-23 04:52 (UTC+08:00)
Yarin Gal's deadpan answer on LLM-written papers: "any text written by an LLM" — yaringal · 2026-09-23 17:01 (UTC+08:00)

[source] Yarin Gal warns of homogenized, vacuous language creeping into ML papers — yaringal · 2026-09-22
Oxford's Yarin Gal: write papers yourself, LLMs should only review — yaringal · 2026-09-22
Yarin Gal: Most LLM-written papers won't stand the test of time — yaringal · 2026-09-22
[source] Dietterich pushes back on LeCun's claim that LLM-written papers won't stand the test of time — tdietterich · 2026-09-23
[source] Yarin Gal's deadpan answer on LLM-written papers: "any text written by an LLM" — yaringal · 2026-09-23