When low-quality papers cost nothing to make, how do we price in reputational cost?

Aaroth · x · 2026-09-10

The author argues that since AI has driven the cost of producing low-quality papers to near zero, the publication system must now raise the cost of submitting them — most easily by imposing reputational costs on low-quality work.

The post ends with an open question about how to implement this, opening a discussion on peer review and academic quality governance in the AI era.

Related event: Researcher Proposes Reputation Costs to Combat Zero-Cost AI Paper Spam(2 posts)→

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