arrow
Return

Quantifying large language model usage in scientific papers

delete2025-08-04
delete0
PRE
AI
W
Weixin Liang *
Y
Yaohui Zhang
Z
Zhengxuan Wu
H
Haley Lepp
W
Wenlong Ji
X
Xuandong Zhao
H
Hancheng Cao
刘
刘胜 (Sheng Liu)
何思雨 cover
何思雨 (Siyu He)
Z
Zhi Huang
D
Diyi Yang
C
Christopher Potts
C
Christopher D. Manning
J
James Zou *
DOI:10.1038/s41562-025-02273-8delete
deleteOriginal
deleteOriginal request for help
deleteShare
deleteSave
Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Scientific publishing is the primary means of disseminating research findings. There has been speculation about how extensively large language models (LLMs) are being used in academic writing. Here we conduct a systematic analysis across 1,121,912 preprints and published papers from January 2020 to September 2024 on arXiv, bioRxiv and Nature portfolio journals, using a population-level framework based on word frequency shifts to estimate the prevalence of LLM-modified content over time. Our findings suggest a steady increase in LLM usage, with the largest and fastest growth estimated for computer science papers (up to 22%). By comparison, mathematics papers and the Nature portfolio showed lower evidence of LLM modification (up to 9%). LLM modification estimates were higher among papers from first authors who post preprints more frequently, papers in more crowded research areas and papers of shorter lengths. Our findings suggest that LLMs are being broadly used in scientific writing. Liang et al. estimate the prevalence of text modified by large language models in recent scientific papers and preprints, finding widespread use (up to 17.5% of papers in computer science).

Journal

Nature Human Behaviour cover
Nature Human Behaviour
IF:
15.9
Papers:
504
Citations:
1.7W

Organization

D
department of electrical engineering
Scholars:
1.3K
Papers: 671
Citations: 0
D
Department of Computer Science
Scholars:
1.7K
Papers: 998
Citations: 8
D
department of biomedical data science
Scholars:
30
Papers: 22
Citations: 0
G
Graduate School of Education
Scholars:
137
Papers: 104
Citations: 0
D
department of statistics
Scholars:
581
Papers: 369
Citations: 4
researcher View more organizations
Cited Papers

Cited Papers

GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers
err2023-07-01
err66
errOAAI
errLiang, Weixin; Yuksekgonul, Mert; Mao, Yining; Wu, Eric; Zou, James
errShare
errSave
ChatGPT is fun, but not an author
err2023-01-27
err0
errOAAI
errH. Holden Thorp
errShare
errSave
Testing of detection tools for AI-generated text
err2023-12-25
err70
errOAAI
errWeber-Wulff, Debora; Anohina-Naumeca, Alla; Bjelobaba, Sonja; Foltynek, Tomas; Guerrero-Dib, Jean; Popoola, Olumide; Sigut, Petr; Waddington, Lorna
errShare
errSave
errShare
errSave
What Is a Paraphrase?
err2013-09-01
err117
errOAAI
errBhagat, Rahul; Hovy, Eduard
errShare
errSave
err
IF0
err
err0
PREAI
err
errShare
errSave
Can Large Language Models Provide Useful Feedback on Research Papers? A Large-Scale Empirical Analysis
err2024-07-25
err0
errOAAI
errWeixin Liang; Yuhui Zhang; Hancheng Cao; Binglu Wang; Daisy Yi Ding; Xinyu Yang; Kailas Vodrahalli; Siyu He; Daniel Scott Smith; Yian Yin; Daniel A. McFarland; James Zou
errShare
errSave
MAGE: Machine-generated Text Detection in the Wild
err2024-01-01
err0
PREAI
errYafu Li; Qintong Li; Leyang Cui; Wei Bi; Zhilin Wang; Longyue Wang; Linyi Yang; Shuming Shi; Yue Zhang
errShare
errSave
researcher View more