arXiv Bans Authors 1 Year for Papers With Unchecked LLM-Generated Errors

The Policy

Thomas Dietterich, an arXiv moderator for cs.LG, announced via X that arXiv has clarified its penalties for papers containing unchecked LLM-generated errors. If a submission contains incontrovertible evidence that authors did not verify AI-generated content — such as hallucinated references, fabricated results, or plagiarized passages — all authors face a one-year ban from submitting to arXiv.

Dietterich cited arXiv's existing Code of Conduct: by signing a paper, each author takes full responsibility for all its contents, regardless of how those contents were generated.

Context

The flood of low-effort AI-generated papers has strained arXiv's moderation system, with authors reporting increasingly long 'on-hold' periods before papers are processed. This policy moves arXiv beyond passive guidelines into active enforcement with real consequences.

Community Reaction

The announcement generated over 600 upvotes on r/MachineLearning, alongside a separate post on the backlash that itself accumulated 350+ points. Critics argue the 'author responsibility' standard is vague and the penalty harsh, especially for large multi-author papers. Supporters say hallucinated citations actively corrupt the scientific record.

What This Means for Researchers

Any researcher using LLMs as writing or research aids must now verify all AI-generated content before submission — not as best practice, but as a requirement to avoid a year-long ban. The debate over where academic AI accountability standards should land has only just begun.