“CERTAINLY, HERE is a possible introduction for your topic...” began a recent article in Surfaces and Interfaces, a scientific journal. Attentive readers might have wondered who exactly that bizarre opening line was addressing. They might also have wondered whether the ensuing article, on the topic of battery technology, was written by a human or a machine.

It is a question ever more readers of scientific papers are asking. Large language models (LLMs) are now more than good enough to help write a scientific paper. They can breathe life into dense scientific prose and speed up the drafting process, especially for non-native English speakers. Such use also comes with risks: LLMs are particularly susceptible to reproducing biases, for example, and can churn out vast amounts of plausible nonsense. Just how widespread an issue this was, though, has until recently been unclear.