Delving into ChatGPT usage in academic writing through excess vocabulary

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2406.07016v4
• Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2025 22:15:24 GMT
• Title: Delving into ChatGPT usage in academic writing through excess vocabulary
• Authors: Dmitry Kobak, Rita González-Márquez, Emőke-Ágnes Horvát, Jan Lause,
• Abstract summary: Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can generate and revise text with human-level performance.<n>We study vocabulary changes in 14 million PubMed abstracts from 2010--2024, and show how the appearance of LLMs led to an abrupt increase in the frequency of certain style words.<n>We show that LLMs have had an unprecedented impact on the scientific literature, surpassing the effect of major world events such as the Covid pandemic.
• Score: 4.58733012283457
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can generate and revise text with human-level performance. These models come with clear limitations: they can produce inaccurate information, reinforce existing biases, and be easily misused. Yet, many scientists use them for their scholarly writing. But how wide-spread is such LLM usage in the academic literature? To answer this question, we present an unbiased, large-scale approach: we study vocabulary changes in 14 million PubMed abstracts from 2010--2024, and show how the appearance of LLMs led to an abrupt increase in the frequency of certain style words. This excess word analysis suggests that at least 10% of 2024 abstracts were processed with LLMs. This lower bound differed across disciplines, countries, and journals, reaching 30% for some sub-corpora. We show that LLMs have had an unprecedented impact on the scientific literature, surpassing the effect of major world events such as the Covid pandemic.

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