The real issue for me is that the bot might generate incorrect text, imposing a yet-higher burden on readers who already find it difficult to keep up with the literature. It is hard enough, working sentence by sentence through a paper (or even an abstract) wondering whether the authors made a mistake in the work, had difficulty explaining that work clearly, or wasted my time by "pumping up" their work to get it published.
The day is already too short, with an expansion of journals. But, there's a sort of silver lining: many folks restrict their reading to authors that they know, and whose work (and writing) they trust. Institutions come into play also, for I assume any professor caught using a bot to write text will be denied tenure or, if they have tenure, denied further research funding. Rules regarding plagiarism require only the addition of a phrase or two to cover bot-generated text, and plagiarism is the big sin in academia.
Speaking of sins, another natural consequence of bot-generate text is that students will be assessed more on examinations, and less on assignments. And those exams will be either hand-written or done in controlled environments, with invigilators watching like hawks, as they do at conventional examinations. We may return to the "old days", when grades reflected an assessment of how well students can perform, working alone, without resources and under pressure. Many will view this as a step backward, but those departments that have started to see bot-generated assignments have very little choice, because the university that gives an A+ to every student will lose its reputation and funding very quickly.
The day is already too short, with an expansion of journals. But, there's a sort of silver lining: many folks restrict their reading to authors that they know, and whose work (and writing) they trust. Institutions come into play also, for I assume any professor caught using a bot to write text will be denied tenure or, if they have tenure, denied further research funding. Rules regarding plagiarism require only the addition of a phrase or two to cover bot-generated text, and plagiarism is the big sin in academia.
Speaking of sins, another natural consequence of bot-generate text is that students will be assessed more on examinations, and less on assignments. And those exams will be either hand-written or done in controlled environments, with invigilators watching like hawks, as they do at conventional examinations. We may return to the "old days", when grades reflected an assessment of how well students can perform, working alone, without resources and under pressure. Many will view this as a step backward, but those departments that have started to see bot-generated assignments have very little choice, because the university that gives an A+ to every student will lose its reputation and funding very quickly.