Merton101 · Case 5 · Science and publishing
One in five ICLR 2026 reviews was fully AI-written
Reported 19 Nov 2025 · entered the ledger 25 Sep 2026 · last checked 25 Sep 2026 · Side effect
Pangram analysed the papers and reviews of ICLR 2026 and found 15,899 reviews, 21%, fully AI-generated and over half with some AI involvement; ICLR desk-rejects undisclosed LLM papers and penalises reviewers.
The institution
ICLR 2026 peer review
institution
The mechanism
Arms race
externality scale 4 of 5, fast
Adaptation
detect
the institution can tell machine from human, and stops there
The case
- The assumption that broke
- A review is a careful read by a person.
- The first-order effect
- A fifth of reviews generated; authors answer filler; detection tools triage.
- Who pays
- authors, and the field's trust in its own review · group: The general public
- Scale and speed
- 4 of 5 · fast
Evidence
-
Pangram ↗
19 Nov 2025
We found 21%, or 15,899 reviews, were fully AI-generated.
The second reader
| Claim | Verdict | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 21%, or 15,899 reviews, were fully AI-generated | supported | Page states: "We found 21%, or 15,899 reviews, were _fully AI-generated_." |
| over half of the reviews had some form of AI involvement | supported | Page states: "We found over half of the reviews had some form of AI involvement, either AI editing, assistance, or full AI-generation." |