The Great AI Witch Hunt: Reviewers Perception and (Mis)Conception of Generative AI in Research Writing

Understand

Generative AI (GenAI) use in research writing is growing fast.

• However, it is unclear how peer reviewers recognize or misjudge AI-augmented manuscripts.
• To investigate the impact of AI-augmented writing on peer reviews, we conducted a snippet-based online survey with 17 peer reviewers from top-tier HCI conferences.
• Our findings indicate that while AI-augmented writing improves readability, language diversity, and informativeness, it often lacks research details and reflective insights from authors.