[Hotstorage-sc] Input regarding AI generated submissions to HS '26

[Angela Demke Brown]

We ran into something similar with SOSP. In our case it was 9 papers from
one company/pair of authors and 6 papers from another company and pair of
authors, which on investigation appeared to be the same authors using
different first names.

Given the lack of policy in the CFP on generative AI use, and the ACM
authorship policies, we felt we couldn't do anything other than (a) ask the
authors to explain their use of AI and (b) let the papers be rejected on
the basis of their quality. The authors in our case claimed AI use only to
polish their writing, which is generally allowed.

I have no solutions to offer to HotStorage, unfortunately.

All the best,
Angela

On Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 7:50 p.m. Ashvin Goel via Hotstorage-sc <
hotstorage-sc at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu> wrote:

> The 10 papers were submitted by the same set of authors.
>
> Ashvin
>
> On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 8:28 PM Erez Zadok <ezk at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu> wrote:
>
>> That is a hotly debated topic nowadays among ACM EiCs and multiple
>> conferences.  We just had heated debates about this on the ACM ATC SC too.
>> Different people are trying different things to varying degrees of success,
>> from requiring disclosure by authors, to automated tools, etc.  No perfect
>> solutions.  ACM seems to have given up on getting an AI-detection tools but
>> are looking into cite-checking tools.
>>
>> ACM recently loosened their AI policy: they no longer prohibit it
>> outright but ask authors to disclose AI use if wanted, then ask the
>> reviewers to decide what, if, and how much AI use is ok or not ok.  IOW,
>> ACM now shifted the burden onto reviewers.  Some are ok with this change,
>> others less so.
>>
>> One problem with any AI detectors is that actual text can easily be
>> flagged as AI-generated even if the authors use AI to spell check, polish
>> the text, or ask AI to shrink the text size: these are considered valid
>> uses of AI that shouldn’t result in rejection.
>>
>> That said, the easiest way to catch bad AI use is via citation checks.
>> At TOS, we now validate each citation of a submission before sending it off
>> to be reviewed.  Even with search tools, that’s more work but we have no
>> choice: recently we caught several papers with bad/hallucinated cites deep
>> into the reviewing process (thus wasting reviewers’ precious time).  Any
>> paper with obviously bad/hallucinated cites gets desk-rejected, but we also
>> email the authors to see if they can explain themselves first.
>>
>> So my suggestions are:
>>
>> 1. Papers with obviously large portions of AI text should be rejected
>> with minimal reviews.  If authors didn’t spend any significant effort to
>> develop the paper, then our reviewers shouldn’t waste their time either.
>> “You get what you paid for” principle.
>>
>> 2. Papers with too many hallucinated cites should be rejected right away
>> without review.  1-2 cites max may be considered a silly mistake that
>> students sometimes make (I’d ask the authors), but any more should be
>> rejected.
>>
>> 3. I don’t think we should limit the number of submissions per author.
>> While rare, it’s possible to see 2-3 papers submitted by a subset of the
>> same authors.  Now, when you say “a set of authors had submitted 10
>> papers,” *how many* are in the set?!  Is it the same exact authors who
>> submitted 10 separate papers?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Erez.
>>
>> > On Jul 14, 2026, at 2:18 PM, Ashvin Goel via Hotstorage-sc <
>> hotstorage-sc at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi all,
>> >
>> > The HS '26 PC chairs (Young-ri and Bryan) are asking for input from us
>> regarding a set of paper submissions that have likely been AI generated.
>> Two reviewers expressed concerns to the chairs. They found several papers
>> with similar concepts applied to different areas, following a similar
>> structure, language (including hard to understand or strange words) and
>> flaws. The chairs found that a set of authors had submitted 10 papers (13%
>> of the 79 submissions). The reviewers are currently leaning negative on
>> several of these papers, pointing out that the papers are difficult to
>> understand, describe concepts vaguely, and use unfamiliar language. The
>> positive-leaning papers will be discussed at the PC meeting.
>> >
>> > The chairs are looking for input about the best course of action to
>> handle this case of suspected AI-generated papers. On the one hand, ACM
>> allows the use of undisclosed AI. Thus, rejections should be grounded on
>> the paper's technical contribution and novelty, rather than AI use, which
>> is hard to detect accurately using current AI detection tools. On the other
>> hand, such AI-generated papers will overwhelm reviewers in the future.
>> >
>> > Let me know if you have any specific suggestions regarding handling the
>> current case with the 10 submissions. More broadly, we should discuss if HS
>> should put in place any policies for AI generated papers. Here are some
>> examples I have seen:
>> >
>> > 1. Using multiple detectors and letting reviewers know so they can
>> decide
>> > 2. Desk rejecting papers with hallucinated references
>> > 3. Limiting number of submissions by authors
>> >
>> > Thanks
>> > Ashvin
>> > --
>> > Hotstorage-sc mailing list
>> > Hotstorage-sc at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu
>> > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2flists.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2fhotstorage-sc&c=E,1,9nSB6krTcWUevDUPh0GnxpSHJioYmFKFGwJnFb75Ht4Y5sn_RMXhSRhjtvoF3VH3P9yavuXl1zK8UPmFmNmW6_fecR1RoBg7ZLIIiy8ehUYrfw,,&typo=1
>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2flists.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2fhotstorage-sc&c=E,1,z8DobtW1BkooL5a0UNH0Ce6rw30e6DGipeCv9AQMN7tsuC2XM5d49YemzXRXUt7_W7l9VJuVm9ocASktZsTHaM-UuclKlYotowsgGzwhcHIBze7dcUCBCIUP4A,,&typo=1>
>>
>>
>> --
> Hotstorage-sc mailing list
> Hotstorage-sc at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu
> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2flists.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2fhotstorage-sc&c=E,1,rp-3amI0FM5IRilmfEk4co_YkMT_CyilpTYkaz8qLRBO8b9sZY7o0IZKnu6gkzHkkTslEcOMxtSNq1926AaxOoMqXYOza85lHzeSjcIOQrk43A,,&typo=1
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/pipermail/hotstorage-sc/attachments/20260714/21157fa5/attachment-0001.htm>