As Predicted, Laughingstock

The wider AI world is catching on to how bad things have become in scientific publishing, with AI the key card into the mess.

When the now-infamous AI-generated illustration of the monstrosity I have dubbed “Ratatestes” first appeared, I wrote this:

This really does seem like an inflection point — a tipping point into the absurd and laughable by a communications industry once-renowned for its deliberate care, rigor, and reliability.

Painful as it is to say, I think I was right, as things are now snowballing a bit.

Gary Marcus, who is a devoted and insightful skeptic of AI claims, often proving them shabby and overblown, caught wind of “Ratatestes,” and now has his eye focused more on what he calls “The exponential enshittification of science.”