A Journal Bot Overrode Its Editor and Yanked Every Real Expert He Invited
Frontiers' AIRA bot invited unqualified reviewers and revoked the real experts editor Michael Okun picked, so he quit after being told the AI could not be turned off.
Michael Okun, an associate editor at Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, kept hand-picking qualified referees for a manuscript, and the journal’s AIRA system kept overriding him. Okun says he was told to ignore the requests AIRA had sent out, and to continue seeking reviewers himself. But when he did so, and one of his invited experts accepted the request, AIRA revoked all his other invitations. He asked for the bot to be shut off and was told that was not possible, so he resigned, and other editors told the outlet the machine keeps inviting reviewers with no relevant expertise. Frontiers, a publisher that pays its editors nothing and keeps the author fees, automated the one job the humans showed up to do, then kept the automation running over their objections. The Transmitter on the editor who resigned
Source: The Transmitter
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