Economist urges journals to adopt zero tolerance for AI-written papers, with 2-year bans

paulnovosad · x · 2026-09-24

Economist Paul Novosad calls for academic journals to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on AI-written manuscripts: screen submissions with detection tools like Pangram and issue 2-year submission bans. He acknowledges justified edge cases but argues they will be swamped by an avalanche of AI slop that demoralizes referees and could kill journals outright — "bad money drives out the good." With referee revolts already happening, he says action is needed today, even if the approach may need revisiting by 2027-2028.

Related event: Economist Calls for Zero Tolerance of AI Writing in Journals(8 posts)→

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