[TYPES] AI-generated conference submissions

[Jonathan Aldrich]

Penalties for ACM policy violations are covered here:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/penalties-for-publication-violations__;!!IBzWLUs!Sjaz8owhfEo9XGIOjdHvYlt4K1i0NrcU2OJwhOfFW-zvlNaateRbntcrFSLLEBufF-BToem_Mxww-uzmXyT4YGGe2ItcCGK8yGCGee6rNw$ 

Regarding application to cases of AI use, I'd like to echo Mae's call for
empathy and grace, particularly in cases that might involve students. A lot
of violations are likely unintentional in this context. ACM definitely
tries to take these factors into consideration in addressing ethics and
plagiarism cases.  A harmless use of AI by a student who neglects to
acknowledge AI use, perhaps because they were unaware of the policy, might
receive only a warning ("Level I") and if already published, a corrigendum
to the paper acknowledging the AI use.

If the AI use compromises the integrity of the paper the paper would of
course be rejected or, if already published, retracted ("Level II").  When
caught during reviewing, these kinds of violations can be handled by
conference chairs (e.g. with the approach Mae suggests), with notification
to ACM's Ethics and Plagiarism committee.  I remember how big of a deal
even a single paper rejection was to me as a student; I am sure that this
level of action is enough to motivate care and compliance with disclosure
requirements for the vast majority of our community.

The penalties do escalate according to the context.  Careless use by
someone who should know better (typically more senior researchers) might be
a Level III violation, with a 1-year publication/participation ban; if it
was intentional or repeated it would be a 2 year ban (Level IV), and if it
is severe, intentional, and repeated it would be Level V (5 year ban).  In
practice, bans of 5 years, or more (for stacked Level V penalties) are
typically for things like reviewing rings, severe research misconduct,
severe harassment or abuse in ACM-relevant contexts--in which case it is of
course very well justified.  Without revealing details of confidential
cases, scandals that make the news are likely to be at this level of
severity (to be clear, "makes the news" is not among our criteria--there's
correlation here, not causation).  Keep in mind that a 5 year ban is
already career-ending or at least career-altering for someone whose work
centers on publishing in ACM venues.

The ACM spends a lot of volunteer time and money (some of these involve
in-depth investigations and lawyers) on such issues, and when they come to
the publications board, the conversations involve careful and substantive
deliberation, with the typical result a strong consensus on the action
taken. Having been a part of the process, I can say while it is imperfect,
costly, and sometimes slow, it is generally fair and its outcomes achieve a
large measure of justice and help to protect our community.

Best,

Jonathan

On Tue, Mar 17, 2026 at 3:30 AM Drossopoulou, Sophia <
s.drossopoulou at imperial.ac.uk> wrote:

> What happens to authors when such an AI generated paper is encountered? I
> would have thought that if ACM had a strict policy, eg no papers published
> for the next 5 years, then the problem would be significantly reduced
>
>       Sophia
> ———•••———
> Sent from mobile phone, hence succinct
>
> > On 17 Mar 2026, at 03:54, Jonathan Aldrich <jonathan.aldrich at cs.cmu.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> > CAUTION: This message came from outside Imperial. Do not click links or
> open attachments unless you recognise the sender and were expecting this
> email.
> >
> >
> > [ The Types Forum,
> http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list  ]
> >
> > Ugh, I have been fortunate enough not to encounter that in my reviewing.
> > But I hear it is very common in other subfields so it was probably just a
> > matter of time before it got to PL.
> >
> > If this is an ACM conference, our policies already require disclosing the
> > use of AI for anything beyond grammar-checking-style applications:
> >
> >
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship__;!!IBzWLUs!RC4FcA0-IHc55AxdQMuWNHIfsDdNqAlbvh2m7TpSk7wCaTZl7_iQsMZfqu-oMv768kp_7vwINcEPMtugQGMRVD8jcVueMjwevkEYu5ZLnw$
> >
> > If there are any non-ACM PL conferences that don't have this policy, I
> > would encourage them to adopt it.
> >
> > ACM is evaluating tools that can (heuristically) detect AI use, as well
> as
> > tools that can identify hallucinated references.  We should start to see
> > deployment of these within the next year--if anyone on this list is an
> ACM
> > PC chair and wants to do an early trial, let me know and I can connect
> you
> > with people who may be able to arrange that.  It's of course important to
> > have a human verify any tool reports based on heuristics as they may be
> > incorrect, but the point is that they can save time in identifying
> problems.
> >
> > Regarding reviewing workload, it's very unfortunate.  The tools mentioned
> > above will eventually help some.  In the meantime, it's my view that once
> > you determine that a paper is so flawed it cannot be accepted, especially
> > if that flaw involves misconduct such as undisclosed AI use or otherwise
> > makes the paper very difficult to read, it's reasonable for the reviewer
> to
> > stop reading and return a review based on the portion they read.  Of
> > course, I would mention the situation to the PC chair to make sure they
> are
> > OK with this; most probably are.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> >
> >> On Mon, Mar 16, 2026 at 9:50 PM Stephanie Balzer <
> stephanie.balzer at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> [ The Types Forum,
> http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list 
> >> ]
> >>
> >> Dear all,
> >>
> >> I have now been numerous times on the receiving end on a what it appears
> >> to me (almost) entirely AI-generated conference submissions that I was
> >> assigned to review.  Of course I have no proof, but to me it was pretty
> >> obvious.  The submissions in question consist of an amalgamation of
> >> meaningful words (sometimes not entirely from the context the paper
> >> ought to be about), are generally well written, although meaningless,
> >> and even come backed up with some rules with horizontal lines and proof
> >> sketches (sometimes from various contexts).  That catch, however, is
> >> that the whole composition doesn't make sense.
> >>
> >> What are we going to do about this as a community?
> >>
> >> I have numerous concerns here: My immediate concern is that I do not
> >> like to spend my time on such submissions.  Even though it's quite
> >> obvious immediately that the paper is meaningless, it still takes some
> >> time to make sure and justify the verdict.  Another concern I have is
> >> the risk that, under time pressure, no due diligence is done, and we may
> >> end up accepting such a paper.
> >>
> >> As a first step we may require authors to declare whether AI was used in
> >> preparing their submission and what for and we delimit what uses are
> >> permitted.
> >>
> >> Looking forward to your thoughts,
> >>
> >> Stephanie
> >>
> >>
>