Ben Williamson
@benpatrickwill.bsky.social
Researching data, tech, futures, and biological sciences in education | Senior Lecturer and co-director at the Centre for Research in Digital Education | University of Edinburgh | Editor of Learning, Media and Technology @lmt-journal.bsky.social
Pinned
Knowledge infrastructure crisis: digital democratic deficits and alternative designs for education
The production and circulation of knowledge in education increasingly depends on large-scale digital infrastructures. In this article we provide a critical review of the transformation of the conte...
doi.org
New paper just out on how changing sociotechnical systems of knowledge production and access - platforms, the cloud, AI - pose profound challenges to educational practice and research doi.org/10.1080/0305...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
Also adding this forensic look into the above "ghost citations" problem detailing the human-LLM-Scholar cycle that likely caused it - and which remains an acute issue for scholarly knowledge bsky.app/profile/aaro...
[blogged] Why Ghost References Still Haunt Us in 2025—And Why It's Not Just About LLMs aarontay.substack.com/p/why-ghost-...
Why Ghost References Still Haunt Us in 2025—And Why It's Not Just About LLMs
Ghost references existed long before LLMs. This post examines how Google Scholar's [CITATION] mechanism and web pollution may undermine RAG verification.
aarontay.substack.com
December 23, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Also adding this forensic look into the above "ghost citations" problem detailing the human-LLM-Scholar cycle that likely caused it - and which remains an acute issue for scholarly knowledge bsky.app/profile/aaro...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
[blogged] Why Ghost References Still Haunt Us in 2025—And Why It's Not Just About LLMs aarontay.substack.com/p/why-ghost-...
Why Ghost References Still Haunt Us in 2025—And Why It's Not Just About LLMs
Ghost references existed long before LLMs. This post examines how Google Scholar's [CITATION] mechanism and web pollution may undermine RAG verification.
aarontay.substack.com
December 23, 2025 at 3:48 PM
[blogged] Why Ghost References Still Haunt Us in 2025—And Why It's Not Just About LLMs aarontay.substack.com/p/why-ghost-...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
When viewing the fake article in Google scholar on my university network, there is a link to access the article via my uni's library. That link sends me to a library page that makes fake article appear real... Turns out library page is made programmatically from info on Google scholar 🤦
December 21, 2025 at 1:48 AM
When viewing the fake article in Google scholar on my university network, there is a link to access the article via my uni's library. That link sends me to a library page that makes fake article appear real... Turns out library page is made programmatically from info on Google scholar 🤦
Reposted by Ben Williamson
I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite
Do not cite an academic paper unless you’ve read it
AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist -- And They're Being Cited in Real Journals
Academic articles from authors using large language model are creating an ecosystem of fake research that threatens human knowledge itself.
www.rollingstone.com
December 19, 2025 at 7:01 PM
I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite
Reposted by Ben Williamson
Yup: spot-checked a few things (because grading), and your non-existent article isn't the only non-existent article being cited! Your "datafication" article is even listed as a book from Routledge in this one: www.edupij.com/index/arsiv/...
(It also makes up something for Macgilchrist, and more.)
(It also makes up something for Macgilchrist, and more.)
Integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence and 3D Immersive Environments in Competency-Based Higher Education
www.edupij.com
December 19, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Yup: spot-checked a few things (because grading), and your non-existent article isn't the only non-existent article being cited! Your "datafication" article is even listed as a book from Routledge in this one: www.edupij.com/index/arsiv/...
(It also makes up something for Macgilchrist, and more.)
(It also makes up something for Macgilchrist, and more.)
Reposted by Ben Williamson
It‘s a whole lot weirder than you think. I started looking at the journals. The first few were, as I expected, predatory outlets publishing garbage. But then, there‘s one by a Dr. Emily Carter, whose institutional affiliation is supposedly Cambridge: pjbr.com.pk/index.php/jo...
December 19, 2025 at 6:34 PM
It‘s a whole lot weirder than you think. I started looking at the journals. The first few were, as I expected, predatory outlets publishing garbage. But then, there‘s one by a Dr. Emily Carter, whose institutional affiliation is supposedly Cambridge: pjbr.com.pk/index.php/jo...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
A non-existent paper attributed to Ben Williamson has already been cited 42 times.
It's like Scholarly Communication has been injected with misinformation bombs. Events are totally out of control. No one has a handle on its extent. And, there's no plan to stop it.
@benpatrickwill.bsky.social
It's like Scholarly Communication has been injected with misinformation bombs. Events are totally out of control. No one has a handle on its extent. And, there's no plan to stop it.
@benpatrickwill.bsky.social
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
December 19, 2025 at 6:18 PM
A non-existent paper attributed to Ben Williamson has already been cited 42 times.
It's like Scholarly Communication has been injected with misinformation bombs. Events are totally out of control. No one has a handle on its extent. And, there's no plan to stop it.
@benpatrickwill.bsky.social
It's like Scholarly Communication has been injected with misinformation bombs. Events are totally out of control. No one has a handle on its extent. And, there's no plan to stop it.
@benpatrickwill.bsky.social
Reposted by Ben Williamson
"An academic discovers a paper attributed to him that does not exist has been cited 42 times" is a sentence with an actual referent in 2025.
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
December 19, 2025 at 5:45 PM
"An academic discovers a paper attributed to him that does not exist has been cited 42 times" is a sentence with an actual referent in 2025.
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
December 19, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
I'm sorry, but using AI like this should be considered academic malpractice. I would be infuriated to find out that reviewers were placing my work into AI systems without my consent.
www.frontiersin.org/documents/un...
www.frontiersin.org/documents/un...
December 19, 2025 at 3:22 PM
I'm sorry, but using AI like this should be considered academic malpractice. I would be infuriated to find out that reviewers were placing my work into AI systems without my consent.
www.frontiersin.org/documents/un...
www.frontiersin.org/documents/un...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
At least one academic publisher is now outsourcing article production to an AI firm. How's it going?
Problems with Publishers Moving to AI-Based Production - Daily Nous
Straive is a firm that uses AI to, among other things, help publishers with various tasks "across the publishing value chain". One of its clients is Springer Nature, the publisher of many philosophy j...
dailynous.com
December 18, 2025 at 7:16 PM
At least one academic publisher is now outsourcing article production to an AI firm. How's it going?
Reposted by Ben Williamson
This details the costs of buying AI subscriptions at universities. Co-pilot, which my university subscribes to, is around $30 per month per user.
No wonder budgets are tightening. Imagine if we took that money back from the slop peddlers and their boosters…
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
No wonder budgets are tightening. Imagine if we took that money back from the slop peddlers and their boosters…
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
OpenAI Inks Deals With Colleges, Seizing Early Lead in Education Market
OpenAI has established a beachhead at many US colleges, overcoming university administrators’ wariness of artificial intelligence and giving ChatGPT a headstart on becoming the go-to assistant for the...
www.bloomberg.com
December 19, 2025 at 12:56 PM
This details the costs of buying AI subscriptions at universities. Co-pilot, which my university subscribes to, is around $30 per month per user.
No wonder budgets are tightening. Imagine if we took that money back from the slop peddlers and their boosters…
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
No wonder budgets are tightening. Imagine if we took that money back from the slop peddlers and their boosters…
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
An analysis of X posts from the UK's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology suggests it is overwhelmingly pro-AI.
I analysed the sentiment of every X post from DSIT that mentioned "AI" this year. Of 122 posts, 110 were positive about AI, and only 7 mentioned its downsides.
🧵 1/2
I analysed the sentiment of every X post from DSIT that mentioned "AI" this year. Of 122 posts, 110 were positive about AI, and only 7 mentioned its downsides.
🧵 1/2
December 19, 2025 at 9:40 AM
An analysis of X posts from the UK's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology suggests it is overwhelmingly pro-AI.
I analysed the sentiment of every X post from DSIT that mentioned "AI" this year. Of 122 posts, 110 were positive about AI, and only 7 mentioned its downsides.
🧵 1/2
I analysed the sentiment of every X post from DSIT that mentioned "AI" this year. Of 122 posts, 110 were positive about AI, and only 7 mentioned its downsides.
🧵 1/2
Reposted by Ben Williamson
Academics are making the decision to shove unpublished original research that isn’t even theirs into the plagiarism machine. I can’t.
I find this very alarming. AI is being used in explicitly prohibited ways. No doubt this will soon be the norm. The consequences of this will be dramatic. Over the holidays, the publishers and the whole of academic community are doing nothing else but working on a solution to this, right? RIGHT?!
More than half of researchers now use AI for peer review — often against guidance
A survey of 1,600 academics found that more than 50% have used artificial-intelligence tools while peer reviewing manuscripts.
www.nature.com
December 18, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Academics are making the decision to shove unpublished original research that isn’t even theirs into the plagiarism machine. I can’t.
Reposted by Ben Williamson
Should scientists apply to OpenAI's fund for research on AI & mental health? Should policymakers consider it a credible safety effort?
Avriel Epps & I see it as "grantwashing," and it's an insult to anyone whose loved one's death involved chatbots. We explain:
www.techpolicy.press/beware-of-op...
Avriel Epps & I see it as "grantwashing," and it's an insult to anyone whose loved one's death involved chatbots. We explain:
www.techpolicy.press/beware-of-op...
Beware of OpenAI's 'Grantwashing' on AI Harms | TechPolicy.Press
J. Nathan Matias and Avriel Epps say OpenAI's announced research funding is the perfect corporate action to make sure we don't find answers for years.
www.techpolicy.press
December 18, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Should scientists apply to OpenAI's fund for research on AI & mental health? Should policymakers consider it a credible safety effort?
Avriel Epps & I see it as "grantwashing," and it's an insult to anyone whose loved one's death involved chatbots. We explain:
www.techpolicy.press/beware-of-op...
Avriel Epps & I see it as "grantwashing," and it's an insult to anyone whose loved one's death involved chatbots. We explain:
www.techpolicy.press/beware-of-op...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.
AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist -- And They're Being Cited in Real Journals
Academic articles from authors using large language model are creating an ecosystem of fake research that threatens human knowledge itself.
www.rollingstone.com
December 17, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.
Reposted by Ben Williamson
The ACM Digital Library, where a LOT of computing-related research is published (I'd say at least 75% of my own publications), is now not only providing (without consent of the authors and without opt-in by readers) AI-generated summaries of papers, but they appear as the *default* over abstracts.
December 16, 2025 at 11:31 PM
The ACM Digital Library, where a LOT of computing-related research is published (I'd say at least 75% of my own publications), is now not only providing (without consent of the authors and without opt-in by readers) AI-generated summaries of papers, but they appear as the *default* over abstracts.
Reposted by Ben Williamson
Gruesome tour of the opportunists and new fusionists publishing the tech Zeitgeist in SF
bayareacurrent.com/meet-the-new...
bayareacurrent.com/meet-the-new...
Meet the New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia
Libs and the far-right ‘link and build’ in the Bay’s tech publication scene.
bayareacurrent.com
December 17, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Gruesome tour of the opportunists and new fusionists publishing the tech Zeitgeist in SF
bayareacurrent.com/meet-the-new...
bayareacurrent.com/meet-the-new...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
AI tutors are often held up as an ideal, but prioritizing individualized teaching can detract from the benefits of learning in social environments.
buff.ly/sHsZiV8
buff.ly/sHsZiV8
The ‘one chatbot per child’ model for AI in classrooms conflicts with what research shows: Learning is a social process
AI tutors are often held up as an ideal, but prioritizing individualized teaching can detract from the benefits of learning in social environments.
buff.ly
December 17, 2025 at 11:48 AM
AI tutors are often held up as an ideal, but prioritizing individualized teaching can detract from the benefits of learning in social environments.
buff.ly/sHsZiV8
buff.ly/sHsZiV8
Reposted by Ben Williamson
In one of my classes I teach how to write abstracts. Students *always* say that the experience of writing an abstract forces them to know their work differently, to see it anew & understand its contribution.
Like so much AI, the product isn’t the point. Struggling & learning to make a thing is key.
Like so much AI, the product isn’t the point. Struggling & learning to make a thing is key.
The ACM Digital Library, where a LOT of computing-related research is published (I'd say at least 75% of my own publications), is now not only providing (without consent of the authors and without opt-in by readers) AI-generated summaries of papers, but they appear as the *default* over abstracts.
December 17, 2025 at 2:16 AM
In one of my classes I teach how to write abstracts. Students *always* say that the experience of writing an abstract forces them to know their work differently, to see it anew & understand its contribution.
Like so much AI, the product isn’t the point. Struggling & learning to make a thing is key.
Like so much AI, the product isn’t the point. Struggling & learning to make a thing is key.
Reposted by Ben Williamson
I was interviewed for this story about the bleak state of "academic freedom" in Texas universities and how AI is making things worse. Great reporting from Jessica Priest at the Texas Tribune.
www.texastribune.org/2025/12/15/t...
www.texastribune.org/2025/12/15/t...
Texas universities deploy AI for course audits
Records obtained by The Texas Tribune show how universities are using the technology to reshape curriculum under political pressure, raising concerns about academic freedom.
www.texastribune.org
December 15, 2025 at 9:49 PM
I was interviewed for this story about the bleak state of "academic freedom" in Texas universities and how AI is making things worse. Great reporting from Jessica Priest at the Texas Tribune.
www.texastribune.org/2025/12/15/t...
www.texastribune.org/2025/12/15/t...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
"We envision a resistance that is...a repudiation of the efficiencies that automated algorithmic education falsely promises: a resistance comprising the collective force of small acts of friction."
"How to Resist AI in Education" by me & @cnygren.bsky.social
www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...
"How to Resist AI in Education" by me & @cnygren.bsky.social
www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...
Four Frictions: or, How to Resist AI in Education - Public Books
We are calling for resistance to the AI industry’s ongoing capture of higher education.
www.publicbooks.org
December 16, 2025 at 5:27 PM
"We envision a resistance that is...a repudiation of the efficiencies that automated algorithmic education falsely promises: a resistance comprising the collective force of small acts of friction."
"How to Resist AI in Education" by me & @cnygren.bsky.social
www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...
"How to Resist AI in Education" by me & @cnygren.bsky.social
www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...
Reposted by Ben Williamson
I wrote about the bizarre case of Herasight, the embryo selection company going all in on eugenics.
Embryo selection company Herasight goes all in on eugenics
...
open.substack.com
December 13, 2025 at 8:16 PM
I wrote about the bizarre case of Herasight, the embryo selection company going all in on eugenics.