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Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

This week, I was thrilled to read about the first well-documented case of explicit academic fraud in the artificial intelligence community. I hope that this is the beginning of a trend, and that other researchers will be inspired by their example and follow up by engaging in even more blatant...

By partaking in a form of fraud that has left the Overton window of acceptability, the researchers in the collusion ring have finally succeeded in forcing the community to acknowledge its blind spot. Readers are forced to act more like reviewers, weighing the evidence presented against their priors, attempting to identify ways in which surprising conclusions could be the result of fraud – explicit or subtle – rather than fact. Widespread fraud would force us to re-strengthen our community’s academic norms, transforming the way we do research, and improving our collective ability to progress humanity’s knowledge.

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