Journal Submissions Riddled With AI-Created Fake Citations

An adjunct education professor unknowingly requested a fake paper that doesn’t exist, highlighting the problem of AI-generated fake citations.
Professors Charles Hodges and Stephanie Moore were falsely attributed with a non-existent journal article which included a convincing DOI link.
Another professor faced a similar situation when a book proposal listed an AI-created nonexistent edited volume.
As AI technologies expand into academia, problems like phantom citations are increasingly common, affecting both academics and journal editors.
Journal editors are noticing a rise in AI-generated fake citations and are struggling to identify these fabricated references.
Academic journals are considering or already employing screening methods to catch AI-generated fake citations before they lead to the publication of spurious work.
The prevalence of fake citations endangers good academic work, highlighting ethical concerns in the misuse of AI tools in academia.