[Molitor5901]

AI might just extinguish the entire paradigm of publish or perish. The sheer volume of papers makes it nearly impossible to properly decide which papers have merit, which are non-replicate and suspect, and which are just a desperate rush to publish. The entire practice needs to end.

[SJC_Hacker]

Its not publish or perish so much as get grant money or perish.

Publishing is just the way to get grants.

A PI explained it to me once, something like this

Idea(s) -> Grant -> Experiments -> Data -> Paper(s) -> Publication(s) -> Idea(s) -> Grant(s)

Thats the current cycle ... remove any step and its a dead end

[shermantanktop]

But how could we possibly evaluate faculty and researcher quality without counting widgets on an assembly line? /s

It’s a problem. The previous regime prior to publishing-mania was essentially a clubby game of reputation amongst peers based on cocktail party socialization.

The publication metrics came out of the harder sciences, I believe, and then spread to the softest of humanities. It was always easy to game a bit if you wanted to try, but now it’s trivial to defeat.