was withdrawn by the publisher, who claimed that the authors of the study had violated the rules of the journal.
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, was about the function of stem cells associated with the testes of rats. But it was not the subject of the study that attracted attention. The authors of the study included several images that were fantastically and grotesquely wrong. In the text of the article, the authors indicated that the images were made using Midjourney, one of the most popular image generators using artificial intelligence. The article was retracted on February 16, three days after it was published, transmits Gizmodo.
The study included low-quality AI-generated figures and annotations, including «rat». Despite the processes in place to ensure compliance, the continued use of AI-generated images that contradicted our clear guidelines went unnoticed and the article was published.
— said a representative of Frontiers.
Frontiers’ editorial guidelines provide for «an initial quality check of» manuscripts by the journal’s research integrity team and the processing editor before they are submitted for review. However, problematic illustrations were published. One of the article’s reviewers said that the images were not his responsibility. The article was downloaded more than 24,000 times and viewed 358,673 times. The paper certainly attracted more attention than it would have if it had scientifically accurate illustrations.