A recent overhyped report linking black plastic cooking utensils to cancer prompted the realization that a mathematical error overstated risk levels. Researchers soon discovered that AI could have quickly identified this mistake. Taking action, two projects, the Black Spatula Project and YesNoError, harness AI to analyze hundreds of thousands of research papers for errors. They aim to improve submission integrity by ensuring researchers and journals utilize these tools to prevent flawed information from being disseminated. The efforts have garnered some academic support, though they also raise questions about verification and oversight.
Both projects want researchers to use their tools before submitting work to a journal, and journals to use them before they publish, the idea being to avoid mistakes, as well as fraud, making their way into the scientific literature.
The risk was found to be overhyped - a mathematical error in the underlying research suggested a key chemical exceeded the safe limit when in fact it was ten times lower than the limit.
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