[snickerer]

Reform idea:

We should decouple the publishing of papers from academic careers completely. Papers can't generate any reputation or money for the authors anymore. To achieve that, we must anonymize the authors.

All scientists get some (paid) time to write papers — if they want. What they write and if they publish it is not known to anybody. They are trusted to write something of value in that time.

Universities can come up with other ways of judging which professors they hire. Interviews. Test teachings. Or the writing of an non-public application essay, which describes their past research and discoveries.

[mmooss]

The value, to society, to your field and to you institution, of being a scholar is to create new knowledge. New knowledge has no value unless you disseminate it, or publish.

Another necessity is the public (usually within its field) examination of the knowledge, including discussion/debate. Knowledge is merely embryonic without those things - undeveloped, not at all reliable. That is difficult without the author able to respond. And others want to expand and build on the work, which often benefits greatly from contacting the author.

In the modern (post-positivist?) approach to science, the world respects that it's written by a human who has a perspective and, despite their best intentions, biases. You can't evaluate any knowledge without knowing its source, in science or elsewhere. The first element of a citation is the author, not the title or journal (though I don't know why that happened historically).

And the latter is a reason any LLM author should be identified.