Something you've gotta understand is that the majority of English-language scientific journal articles are written by authors who aren't native English speakers/writers.

> https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb202333/publication-output-by-r...

In the past, just after they submit a poorly-written paper, the sleazeballs at Wiley/Elsevier/Springer would "encourage" said authors to employ their "Author Services" who would edit and rewrite their paper for them, and resubmit it for publication. This didn't come cheap.

Today, everybody just uses LLMs. LLMs are masterful translators of language and concepts. It's a win-win for everybody but Author Services.

Admittedly, word choice and sentence structure are much more limited. (This is not necessarily a bad thing. LLM-written scientific papers can be clearer, and are often more tidy, than human-written scientific papers.) I don't like seeing LLM-written text in journalism, literature, and other media, but I don't mind it so much in scientific literature -- if there's no fraud involved, that is.

As a researcher myself, I find it curious that so many of my peers are turning to LLMs to assist in writing.

Writing is a process of communicating one's data and thoughts, and it is the coherent crystallization of such thoughts that produces good scientific papers.

I can't imagine a scenario where an LLM would somehow be able to articulate the outcome of original research better than the researcher themselves. And if the researcher can't articulate their findings, it's dubious that they are worth communicating.

The exception would only be those who are not native English writers, in which case the LLM might improve grammar, etc.

I both like and dislike the writing style of LLMs.

I like the clarity and easy-to-read usability, but at the same time I find the stylistic tics and overusage of words and phrases often grates.

I wonder if this stylistic failure is something that will get fixed or if it's the inevitable consequence of LLMs.

I'm not a scientist or someone producing technical literature for others to consume, but I feel like I'd want my humanity to come through on important topics like this. I love using LLMs but there are some tasks (like writing comments or texting friends) that I refuse to use them with, otherwise I'm applying `normalizeText(myUniqueText)`.

I'm sure there are deadlines and other constraints that cause professionals to reach for LLMs when producing their work, just like school-age kids use them for homework so they have more time to do whatever they'd rather be doing, so I can understand.

Amusingly, the article talks about "improving equity in science". The linked article, "AI tools can improve equity in science" has a link to Google Scholar.[1] The summary there begins "The global space industry is growing rapidly—the number of satellites in orbit is expected to increase from 9000 today to over 60,000 by 2030 . In addition, it is estimated that more than 100 trillion untracked pieces of old satellites ...". That's because Google Scholar hit a paywall and treated the following unrelated letter as the content.

So it looks like the authors used some tool to generate plausible citation links, which they did not read before publishing.

They did some real work. Here's their list of "excess style words", ones whose frequency has increased substantially since LLMs:

accentuates, acknowledges, acknowledging, addresses, adept, adhered, adhering, advancement, advancements, advancing, advocates, advocating, affirming, afflicted, aiding, akin, align, aligning, aligns, alongside, amidst, assessments, attains, attributed, augmenting, avenue, avenues, bolster, bolstered, bolstering, broader, burgeoning, capabilities, capitalizing, categorized, categorizes, categorizing, combating, commendable, compelling, complicates, complicating, comprehending, comprising, consequently, consolidates, contributing, conversely, correlating, crafted, crafting, culminating, customizing, delineates, delve, delved, delves, delving, demonstrating, dependability, dependable, detailing, detrimentally, diminishes, diminishing, discern, discerned, discernible, discerning, displaying, disrupts, distinctions, distinctive, elevate, elevates, elevating, elucidate, elucidates, elucidating, embracing, emerges, emphasises, emphasising, emphasize, emphasizes, emphasizing, employing, employs, empowers, emulating, emulation, enabling, encapsulates, encompass, encompassed, encompasses, encompassing, endeavors, endeavours, enduring, enhancements, enhances, ensuring, equipping, escalating, evaluates, evolving, exacerbating, examines, exceeding, excels, exceptional, exceptionally, exerting, exhibiting, exhibits, expedite, expediting, exploration, explores, facilitated, facilitates, facilitating, featuring, formidable, fostering, fosters, foundational, furnish, garnered, garnering, gauged, grappling, groundbreaking, groundwork, harness, harnesses, harnessing, heighten, heightened, hinder, hinges, hinting, hold, holds, illuminates, illuminating, imbalances, impacting, impede, impeding, imperative, impressive, inadequately, incorporates, incorporating, influencing, inherent, initially, innovative, inquiries, integrates, integrating, integration, interconnectedness, interplay, intricacies, intricate, intricately, introduces, invaluable, investigates, involves, juxtaposed, leverages, leveraging, maintaining, merges, methodologies, meticulous, meticulously, multifaceted, necessitate, necessitates, necessitating, necessity, notable, noteworthy, nuanced, nuances, offering, optimizing, orchestrating, outlines, overlook, overlooking, paving, persist, pinpoint, pinpointed, pinpointing, pioneering, pioneers, pivotal, poised, pose, posed, poses, posing, predominantly, preserving, pressing, promise, pronounced, propelling, realm, realms, recognizing, refine, refines, refining, remarkable, renowned, revealing, reveals, revolutionize, revolutionizing, revolves, scrutinize, scrutinized, scrutinizing, seamless, seamlessly, seeks, serves, serving, shaping, shedding, showcased, showcases, showcasing, signifying, solidify, spanned, spanning, spurred, stands, stemming, strategically, streamline, streamlined, streamlines, streamlining, struggle, substantiated, substantiates, surged, surmount, surpass, surpassed, surpasses, surpassing, swift, swiftly, thorough, transformative, typically, ultimately, uncharted, uncovering, underexplored, underscore, underscored, underscores, underscoring, unexplored, unlocking, unparalleled, unraveling, unveil, unveiled, unveiling, unveils, uphold, upholding, urging, utilizes, varying, versatility, warranting, yielding.

That's the vocabulary of business hype. Those are words that appear frequently in company press releases, and are copied into business publications by cut-and-paste journalists. LLMs asked to polish scientific material will use that vocabulary, even in scientific writing. If you trained an LLM on scientific publications, you'd get more scientific jargon, probably misused.

[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=AI+tools+can...

I always take issue with the saying the llms are biased. 1) because they are obviously biased as per their training and instructions 2) but are they more biased (at the moment) than google search and wikipedia?

They are tools and we all have to get used to them.

Soon grok and Deepseek will probably be biased when their owners crack the code, so citing what tools you use will be important.

Took me too long to catch the playful (or hinting?) word use in the title.

I expect in a few days there will be a new tool launched that returns word frequency/velocity in recent biomedical papers ... so next year's PhDs can level things using an MCP function

Paper has an A+ title that really should have been submitted!

I need to get full current network

File under "LLMs as Western soft power victory". Chinese AI's have Western liberal sensibilities, English achieves even deeper dominance in scientific publications etc.

"Delves", "potential", and "significant" all made a large increase. Those words also strike me as the non-committal weasel words Google's AI overview for Google searches tends to produce as the AI isn't really entirely sure it can make a definitive conclusion.

Generated text seems to work because so few people read and even fewer think as they read.

AI writing often creates a firehose output of sing-songy, long, over styled text -- which is a lot to ask a reader to get through and really comprehend.

I'm guilty of forming my own conclusion or just believing what I see when I'm in a hurry or unfamiliar or don't care a ton. I'd rather read a human's rough output than a polished generated text version.