ICLR 2026 AC publicly backs authors who withdrew paper, calling AI conference reviewing "madness"
mariyaivasileva · x · 2026-11-07
An ICLR 2026 Area Chair (peterrichtarik) publicly shared that a paper in his batch was withdrawn after receiving four reject reviews, and said he agreed with most of the authors' complaints about the review quality.
The authors' withdrawal notice argued the errors were "so fundamental, so systemic in overlooking explicit content" that "limited time" or "oversight" couldn't explain them—since the reviews weren't based on the paper's actual content, they pulled the submission.
The AC added that the authors "gave up. They are fed up. Just like many of us," and that what the AI conference community has been doing with reviews in recent years "is, basically, madness... We pretend the emperor has clothes, but he is naked." The episode is resonating as a symbol of peer-review breakdown at AI conferences.
Related event: ICLR 2026 Author Withdraws Paper Over Reviewers Who Never Read It(2 posts)→
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