Position: Academic Conferences are Potentially Facing Denominator Gaming Caused by Fully Automated Scientific Agents

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2605.09915v1
• Date: Mon, 11 May 2026 03:07:15 GMT
• Title: Position: Academic Conferences are Potentially Facing Denominator Gaming Caused by Fully Automated Scientific Agents
• Abstract summary: A malicious actor deploys AI agents to generate and submit a large volume of superficially plausible but low-quality papers.<n>Under a relatively stable acceptance rate, this dilution can systematically increase the publication probability of a small, targeted set of legitimate papers.<n>We propose and evaluate a range of mitigation strategies, and argue that durable protection will require system-level policy and incentive reforms.
• Score: 38.13598146684529
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: The implicit policy of maintaining relatively stable acceptance rates at top AI conferences, despite exponentially growing submissions, introduces a critical structural vulnerability. This position paper characterizes a new systemic threat we term Agentic Denominator Gaming, in which a malicious actor deploys AI agents to generate and submit a large volume of superficially plausible but low-quality papers. Crucially, their objective is not the acceptance of low-quality papers, but rather to inflate the submission denominator and overwhelm reviewing capacity. Under a relatively stable acceptance rate, this dilution can systematically increase the publication probability of a small, targeted set of legitimate papers. We analyze the practical feasibility of this threat and its broader consequences, including intensified reviewer burnout, degraded review quality, and the emergence of industrialized automated agent mills. Finally, we propose and evaluate a range of mitigation strategies, and argue that durable protection will require system-level policy and incentive reforms, rather than relying primarily on technical detection alone.

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