Commentator rebuts claim that AI will end academic publishing
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In response to Thomas Manabu's view that generative AI will end academic publishing and the "publish or perish" system, a commentator argues that this conclusion is hard to sustain. The commentator says that although LLMs greatly reduce the cost of writing papers, they do not eliminate the scarcity of important research questions, reliable empirical identification, and scientific judgment; instead, they may make quality signals such as journal reputation more important. The comment also argues that lowering production costs with AI will only raise the competitive baseline, leading to more publications and stronger competitive pressure rather than institutional collapse.
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- Hacker News AIWhy AI Will Not End Scholarly Publishing (and the Publish-or-Perish Institution)
This essay critiques Thomas Manabu's argument that generative AI will destroy the publish-or-perish regime by making academic text abundant, contending that it conflates the scarcity of manuscripts with the scarcity of valuable research and credible judgment. The author argues that AI may instead intensify competition and make reputation, certification, and institutional differentiation more important, and that the paper offers no mechanism for institutional collapse. It also notes the irony that Manabu's own AI-assisted paper was published through conventional peer review.
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