A leading peer-reviewed medical journal published—and very rapidly retracted—an article with imagery and text overlays created by artificial intelligence, or AI, software.
The AI-generated images and attendant text were entirely inaccurate, biologically.
The article and subsequent retraction garnered widespread attention due at least in part to what the paper pretended to show and tell.
The peer-reviewed article purported to show various signaling pathways of sperm stem cells, and it used a rodent with overly large genitals—along with AI-generated gibberish—to make its case.
The article, published in the journal Frontiers in Cell and Development Biology, featured an AI-generated rat with giant gonads.
“A ridiculous AI-generated rat penis made it into a peer-reviewed journal,” Popular Science reported, adding that “researchers used Midjourney’s AI image generators to illustrate the fantastical rodent beside incoherent strings of text.”
“A peer-reviewed study featured nonsensical AI images including a giant rat penis in the latest example of how generative AI has seeped into academia,” VICE news said.
Illustrations included in the article were AI-generated, specifically appearing to have been created with “Midjourney,” an AI image generation tool.
Text overlaid on the image also featured words that do not exist in the English language—“senctolic,” “dissilced,” and “testtomcels,” among others.
Dr. Charlotte Houldcroft, a lecturer in the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge, appears first to have raised concerns over the article on X.com.
Erm, how did Figure 1 get past a peer reviewer?! https://t.co/pAkRmfuVed H/T @aero_anna pic.twitter.com/iXpZ1FvM1G
— Dr CJ Houldcroft 🕷️ (@DrCJ_Houldcroft) February 15, 2024
Journal Announced Recent Increased Focus on Quality
“In the context of climate emergency, making scientific research open has never been more important. But for research to be trusted, it must be of the highest quality. Facing an industry-wide rise in fraudulent science, Frontiers has increased its focus on safeguarding quality.”
“Safeguarding Peer Review to Ensure Quality at Scale,” Chief Publishing Officer, Frontiers.org, January 08, 2024
Time stamps suggest the rapidly-retracted article was also published just over one month after the journal Frontiers shared that it had “increased its focus on safeguarding quality.”
That excerpt comes from a Frontiers article published January 8, 2024 by its Chief Publishing Officer, titled “Safeguarding peer review to ensure quality at scale.”
According to the Journal, the now-retracted AI-generated article, “Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway,” followed this timeline:
- “Received: 17 November 2023;
- “Accepted: 28 December 2023;
- “Published: 13 February 2024;
- “Retracted: 16 February 2024.”
Today, likely due to the publicity surrounding its release and retraction, Frontier analytics say, “This article has more views [and downloads] than 99% of all Frontiers articles.”
Journal Issues Statement, Apology
Following an onslaught on public and media attention, the leading scientific journal issued a formal apology and update, which reads in full:
“Frontiers statement concerning the article “Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway”, published on 13 February 2024
“Thanks to the crowdsourcing dynamic of open science, we promptly acted upon the community feedback on the AI-generated figures in the article “Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway”, published on 13 February 2024. Frontiers has now retracted and removed the article from the databases to protect the integrity of the scientific record.
“Our investigation revealed that one of the reviewers raised valid concerns about the figures and requested author revisions. The authors failed to respond to these requests. We are investigating how our processes failed to act on the lack of author compliance with the reviewers’ requirements. We sincerely apologize to the scientific community for this mistake and thank our readers who quickly brought this to our attention.”
Groundbreaking Research Paper on Rat with Giant Penis Retracted
— Mushtaq Bilal, PhD (@MushtaqBilalPhD) February 17, 2024
On Feb 13, the academic journal Frontal published a paper about a rat with a humungous penis. (See Figure 1 below. It really is huge).
As a result, the academic community felt quite sore.
“That rat’s long dick had… pic.twitter.com/O4Wwuq6aPj