Study finds nearly 30% of US STEM dissertations have AI-generated abstracts

An NBER working paper (w35859) quantifies how widely doctoral students are using AI to write their dissertations: Daniel P. Gross and colleagues used the AI detection tool Pangram to analyze abstracts and some full texts of roughly 226,000 US STEM dissertations submitted since 2019, finding that at least 29% of dissertations submitted in 2026 contain AI-generated writing, while only 4.7% of users disclosed it. The study has sparked discussion in economics circles about how doctoral training should work.

Confirmed

• In the first half of 2026, nearly 30% of US STEM dissertation abstracts were AI-generated, with the share rising sharply after ChatGPT appeared
• The study covers about 226,000 US STEM dissertations since 2019, using the detection tool Pangram
• Only 4.7% of users voluntarily disclosed AI involvement
• Usage is more common among students from non-English-speaking countries: dissertations from Iran, South Korea, India, and China show AI-writing rates of 40–50%
• University policies lag far behind this phenomenon

Unconfirmed

• Daniel Gross himself notes the evidence allows multiple interpretations: AI may simply be a translation aid for non-native English speakers (possibly a good thing), or it may be problematic when the goal is publication in English-language journals
• Evidence on career outcomes is correlational, not causal

Why it matters

• Gross argues that if writing is an essential doctoral skill and core to research training, AI ghostwriting poses a serious challenge to maintaining the accumulation of expertise as AI capabilities grow; he admits even he finds writing hard
• Large-scale, low-disclosure AI ghostwriting raises new problems for both academic integrity assessment and the doctoral training system

2026-11-11 ~ 2026-11-11 · 5 related posts

• [source] Nearly 30% of US STEM PhD dissertations now have AI-generated abstracts, NBER study finds — joshgans · 2026-11-11
• Study: up to 50% of STEM PhD dissertations use AI writing, only 4.7% disclose it — paulnovosad · 2026-11-11
• [source] 29% of 2026 US STEM PhD dissertations contain AI-generated writing, study finds — soumitrashukla9 · 2026-11-11
• AI-and-PhD research is open to interpretation, authors caution — paulnovosad · 2026-11-11
• Economists warn AI writing use threatens PhD skill-building — paulnovosad · 2026-11-11