I am asking because this is the latest "trend" among some Journal Editors to leave the submitted paper initially being reviewed and evaluated by an AI that influences their decision about if it is suitable for the Journal to let the paper to undergo peer-review or desk reject it.
Do you think this is a good practice by those Editors?
Using AI for initial screening is not necessarily bad if it’s only a supporting tool. The real problem is when editors rely on it as a substitute for human judgment—this risks bias, lack of transparency, and unfair desk rejections. Final decisions should always remain human.
Yes, I agree and because the effortless temptation and ease gained is such a high risk and can turn very quickly to a bad habit it is better IMO the editors to stay completely out of such practice, and use it only during their judgment for more advanced and faster internet reference search.
There should be also a rule created in the Journals that forbids the editors or peer-reviewers the use of AI for reviewing a paper.
Here is a Survey on Publishing Houses' Policies on AI Use in Peer Review:
(see attached image)
There is currently no consensus on the use of AI.
In my opinion currently the use of AI in research review and assessment is not recommended and should actually being banned because AI is trained with existing data and research papers usually cover novel ideas and new information that the AI could wrongly characterize as false or non rigorous and reject overall an otherwise perfectly valid research paper.
Dear Emmanouil Markoulakis That’s a very timely and important question. In my view, relying on AI for the initial assessment of submissions is a double-edged sword:
Potential benefits:
- AI can help editors with technical checks (plagiarism screening, formatting compliance, language clarity).
- It may speed up the process of identifying manuscripts that clearly fall outside the journal’s scope.
Some Concerns:
- Editorial judgment involves nuance, context, and academic insight that AI currently lacks.
- Over-reliance on AI risks biased or inaccurate decisions, leading to unfair desk rejections.
- It may also reduce transparency, since authors are often not informed about the role AI played in the decision.
Best practice: AI could be a supporting tool, but not a decision-maker. Final calls on suitability should remain entirely with human editors to ensure fairness, accountability, and scholarly rigor.
📩I would be thankful if you gave me your valuable review on my paper:
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