Seongjin Hong told his story "The first-round comments from reviewers were reasonable, and we responded in detail to further improve the clarity and scientific rigour of the work. Yet our paper was ultimately rejected, primarily because of one reviewer’s unexpectedly negative second-round report.

What troubled me was not just the tone, but the nature of the critique. Moreover, the review even contradicted itself. It began by acknowledging that "the authors replied to the questions raised", but then concluded, without coherent reasoning, that "I cannot recommend this work." At that moment, I began to suspect that the review had been written, at least in part, by an AI tool such as ChatGPT. To confirm my suspicions, I compared the reviewer’s comments to a sample review that I generated with a large language model. The similarity was striking.

The editor replied courteously but cautiously: "It is highly unlikely the reviewer used AI. If you can address all concerns, I recommend resubmitting as a new manuscript." After three months of effort invested in revision and response, we were back at the starting line."

Source https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/my-paper-was-probably-reviewed-ai-and-thats-serious-problem

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