I invite @acm.org to review their articles with Tortured Phrases dbrech.irit.fr/pls/apex/f?p... (not the first time I'm doing so, here and on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/posts/guilla...)

Apparently, they're plotted in "Smart PLS". I'm not familiar with the software, but it seems like the blue-and-yellow might be a default color scheme.

www.pls-sem.net/news-1/new-s...

It's a version of sudoku, except instead of 3x3 squares you have weird shaped blocks. The markings like "4+" mean that the numbers in the block should add up to 4. "60x" = the numbers should multiply to 60, etc

It is fortunate that Springer, Elsevier, etc usually insist on vector graphs. You obviously can't do this with a JPEG.

Yes. These figures are usually stored as vector graphics, so you can open them up in a vector graphics editor, "ungroup" them into separate graphical objects (Ctrl+Shift+G in Inkscape), and move them around. Those white rectangles are just another object, added to mask a part of the line below.

Yes, I opened it in Inkscape.

Twelve! It nearly doubled overnight. Just yesterday we were discussing if it was 6 or 7.

All but one are from IJAMT, one is the Journal of Materials Science.

"average person contains 3 spiders" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person contains 0 spiders. Spiders Elisabe, who lives in Area 51 & is made of spiders, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

Obviously, this depends on the field. Machine learning / AI seems to be the worst affected, since it's such a popular topic with a gazillion niche applications.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't be so sure about that. Pick a narrow enough topic, do a Google Scholar search, and you WILL come across tortured phrases within the first few pages of results.

For example, I tried "Parkinson detection using deep learning" and the 2nd page gave me this:

Yep. Here's your result number 3 (and 5) - turns out I'd already commented on it on PubPeer...

pubpeer.com/publications...

Of course not - these are not "AI" (If by "AI" you meant "large language models").

It's just a dumb synonym replacement script, the same one that's been in use for a decade.

And what a collection that is!

"lung knob recognizable proof", "enhancement calculation", "power esteem between the lung knob and the unwanted foundation spot", ...

Found one by accident (it came up in a search for the one you posted):

It really reads like something written by ChatGPT, too (before all the "paraphrasing", at least)...

"boa constrictor pilot"

(Anaconda Navigator)

Goes really well with uncooked information (raw data).