A problem with LLMs in academia

A recently published article in Elseviers’ Surfaces and Interfaces​1​ starts its introduction with the unforgettably original sentence

Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic:

The authors of ​1​

and continues with a fairly generic, but well readable, probably textbook-level overview of the field of lithium batteries. While this paper is far out of my scope of expertise, preventing me from assessing its general merits — this would have been the task of the reviewers, the authors present the reader with a body of text not written by experts but rather a machine trained on producing text that sounds good. They do not disclose the use of any kind of LLM in the writing process and add to the body of uninspired and incremental writings in academia.

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CISM

The “International Centre for Mechanical Sciences” in Udine (Italy) is a result of European integration after WWII and was setup to bring together mechanists from all over the world. The center offers summer schools regularly and I had the pleasure to attend the 27th CISM-IUTAM Summer School on “Sports Physics and Technology”.

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Video editing I

Editing video, i.e. trimming, converting, etc., are often required to present scientific results. Finding good software to do this is often a challenge, therefore I will list free software that I find useful. Today’s pick is Freemake Video Converter, capable of trimming and converting you video without adding watermarks. Watch out during the installation process at it tries to install a ton of additional software on your computer.