Stop DDoS Attacking the Research Community with AI-Generated Survey Papers
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Abstract (arXiv)
Survey papers are foundational to the scholarly progress of research communities, offering structured overviews that guide both novices and experts across disciplines. However, the recent surge of AI-generated surveys, especially enabled by large language models (LLMs), has transformed this traditionally labor-intensive genre into a low-effort, high-volume output. While such automation lowers entry barriers, it also introduces a critical threat: the phenomenon we term the "survey paper DDoS attack" to the research community. This refers to the unchecked proliferation of superficially comprehensive but often redundant, low-quality, or even hallucinated survey manuscripts, which floods preprint platforms, overwhelms researchers, and erodes trust in the scientific record. In this position paper, we argue that we must stop uploading massive amounts of AI-generated survey papers (i.e., survey paper DDoS attack) to the research community, by instituting strong norms for AI-assisted review writing. We call for restoring expert oversight and transparency in AI usage and, moreover, developing new infrastructures such as Dynamic Live Surveys, community-maintained, version-controlled repositories that blend automated updates with human curation. Through quantitative trend analysis, quality audits, and cultural impact discussion, we show that safeguarding the integrity of surveys is no longer optional but imperative to the research community.
Key facts. Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 14 of its 28 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 9 Oct 2025.
Builds on
14 of 28 references.
References · 14
- 2020An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scalecited by 29,915
- 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,712
- 2022PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathwayscited by 5,304
- 2023A Survey on Hallucination in Large Language Models: Principles, Taxonomy, Challenges, and Open Questionscited by 1,582
- 2023MAGE: Machine-generated Text Detection in the Wildcited by 130
- 2024AutoSurvey: Large Language Models Can Automatically Write Surveyscited by 116
- 2025A Survey of LLM-based Deep Search Agents: Paradigm, Optimization, Evaluation, and Challengescited by 58
- 2024DeTeCtive: Detecting AI-generated Text via Multi-Level Contrastive Learningcited by 52
- 2025SurveyForge: On the Outline Heuristics, Memory-Driven Generation, and Multi-dimensional Evaluation for Automated Survey Writingcited by 47
- 2025A Vision for Auto Research with LLM Agentscited by 17
- 2024SurveyAgent: A Conversational System for Personalized and Efficient Research Surveycited by 11
- 2024Taxonomy Tree Generation from Citation Graphcited by 11
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 6.
6 papers.
- 2026Stop Automating Peer Review Without Rigorous Evaluationcited by 12
- 2026Gaming AI-Assisted Peer Reviews Poses New Risks to the Scientific Communitycited by 2
- 2026Position: Academic Conferences are Potentially Facing Denominator Gaming Caused by Fully Automated Scientific Agentscited by 1
- 2026No Hidden Prompts Needed! You Can Game AI Peer Review with Presentation-Only Revisionscited by 1
- 2026Toward an Engineering of Science: Rebalancing Generation and Verification in the Age of AIcited by 0
- 2026An Investigation of the NeurIPS and ICML 2025 Position Trackscited by 0
- 2026An Investigation of the NeurIPS and ICML 2025 Position Tracks6 Jul 2026
- 2026No Hidden Prompts Needed! You Can Game AI Peer Review with Presentation-Only Revisions11 Jun 2026
- 2026Gaming AI-Assisted Peer Reviews Poses New Risks to the Scientific Community8 Jun 2026
- 2026Toward an Engineering of Science: Rebalancing Generation and Verification in the Age of AI11 May 2026
- 2026Position: Academic Conferences are Potentially Facing Denominator Gaming Caused by Fully Automated Scientific Agents11 May 2026
- 2026Stop Automating Peer Review Without Rigorous Evaluation4 May 2026