this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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Scientists aghast at bizarre AI rat with huge genitals in peer-reviewed article (arstechnica.com)
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by blakestacey@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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Appall and scorn ripped through scientists' social media networks Thursday as several egregiously bad AI-generated figures circulated from a peer-reviewed article recently published in a reputable journal. Those figures—which the authors acknowledge in the article's text were made by Midjourney—are all uninterpretable. They contain gibberish text and, most strikingly, one includes an image of a rat with grotesquely large and bizarre genitals, as well as a text label of "dck."

A dck pck, if you will.

Count me among the "some scientists online" who "questioned whether the text was also AI-generated". I mean, it's a disjointed mess. Right off, we get this:

The term “stem cell” was first coined in 1901 by Regaud

Um, no. But if that could be taken for human error, what about a sentence like this:

They were physically sheared and digested with a solution of DnaseI, hyaluronidase, collagenase, and trypsin using a two-step enzymatic digestion method in which the digestive enzymes included DnaseI, hyaluronidase, collagenase, and trypsin.

Just a bit before that, the text does a swerve into what sounds like a specific experiment, which doesn't fit with its surroundings and is very strange in a review article. My guess is the whole thing was made by stitching together LLM responses.

The publisher, Frontiers Media, is not exactly held in high regard overall.

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[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 30 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Here's the pic in its full glory.

AI generated illustration of a rat with a massive schlong in cross-section and misplaced and misspelled captions: "sentollc stem cells", "Dissilced", "dislocctal stem ells" with the first letter s mirrored, "Rat", "Testtomcels", "dck", "Retat", "iollotte sserotgomar cell", "Spermatocial syem cells", and "Sterrm cells" with the last letters smeared together into some kind of quad-hump letter m

Tag yourself, I'm Testtomcels

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 20 points 9 months ago (3 children)

An AI illustration of something vaguely biotechnological with lots of incomprehensible labels. Looks a bit like a circuit board.

This one from the same is also funny

[–] self@awful.systems 19 points 9 months ago

all leftists care about is propronounization stat protemns, translocation, and posting on DMmer

[–] acausal_masochist@awful.systems 10 points 9 months ago

Reminds me of the plastic placemats I ate off of as a toddler.

[–] Syn_Attck@lemmy.today 2 points 7 months ago

Jak stats and prom, what a night.

[–] self@awful.systems 11 points 9 months ago

di>locttal stem ells was my father’s name. please, call me dck

like fuck can you imagine looking at nothing but results like these and believing “yep these are the glimmerings of AGI, what a revolutionary technology”

[–] fasterandworse@awful.systems 10 points 9 months ago

this will be in a future gallery exhibition about the beginning of the Art Cynique movement

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 8 points 9 months ago

I go by many names, but you may call me Iollotte.

[–] sc_griffith@awful.systems 7 points 9 months ago

bond voice I'm retat. rat retat.

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

According to researchers referenced in a 2015 blog post quoted by Allison and James Kaufman in the 2018 book Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science, "Frontiers has used an in-house journals management software that does not give reviewers the option to recommend the rejection of manuscripts" and the "system is setup to make it almost impossible to reject papers". source

Ah yes, pear reviw.

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 10 points 9 months ago

Recommend publication?
>yes
later

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

And it's been retracted:

Following publication, concerns were raised regarding the nature of its AI-generated figures. The article does not meet the standards of editorial and scientific rigor for Frontiers in Cell and Development Biology; therefore, the article has been retracted.

This retraction was approved by the Chief Executive Editor of Frontiers. Frontiers would like to thank the concerned readers who contacted us regarding the published article.

[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 13 points 9 months ago

At least they didn't claim to have "high standards", only "standards"!

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 7 points 9 months ago

That wording is a work of art

[–] jonhendry@awful.systems 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure the "frontiers in" journals are all that reputable.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 9 points 9 months ago

My informal impression is that they range from "OK" to "... the Hell?!".

[–] self@awful.systems 10 points 9 months ago

A dck pck, if you will.

I am so glad it wasn’t just my brain that went there

I read an article about this on mastodon earlier, but somehow it seems like it took a long time for anyone to read the text of the paper and realize that’s garbage too

[–] jonhendry@awful.systems 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

To be fair though rodents can have pretty huge balls. Like dragging on the ground behind them huge.

[–] sc_griffith@awful.systems 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

same with our brave soldiers. god bless

[–] Communist@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

have you seen the photo because we're talking so big that the rat can't reach its little feet to the ground huge

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 9 points 9 months ago

Frontiers Media is the second entry of the "don't cite this BS" list for Wikipedia.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 9 months ago

Funny, when I ask chatgpt to draw a rationalist, the same thing pops up.

[–] CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 6 points 9 months ago

New ppb for Hexbear users?