Swedish AI ethics professor suspected of scientific fraud in artificial intelligence book
Prof. Virginia Dignum of Umeå University has faced accusations of scientific fraud. The complainant points to non-existent references and text passages generated by AI.
Swedish expert on responsible AI accused of scientific misconduct
Google News PL — Crime (pl) reports that Prof. Virginia Dignum from Umeå University in northern Sweden has been accused of scientific fraud. The researcher specialises in the ethics of artificial intelligence and responsible use of AI.
The complaint was filed with the Swedish Committee on Research Misconduct (NPOF) and concerns a popular science book published in February, The AI Paradox, how to make sense of a complex future. The author of the complaint pointed to six references pointing to non-existent sources — they were said to have been "fabricated" or "generated by AI hallucinations".
Dignum, in an interview with the newspaper "Dagens Nyheter", rejected this interpretation. She explained the errors in the references as a technical problem with the Latex programme used to sort them. "The bibliographic lists were not invented by artificial intelligence, but incorrectly converted", she emphasised.
The complaint also drew attention to chapters that were said to have been generated by AI. Dignum, whose native language is Portuguese, admitted that she had used tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini — not to create content, but to correct English language. "Sometimes I would ask whether a sentence was clear enough", she noted. When asked what proportion of the text AI had corrected, she replied: "It could have been a few sentences in each chapter. A maximum of 10 per cent, but I cannot say exactly, I did not count."
The author of the complaint stressed that Dignum — as a researcher dealing with AI ethics — should have exercised particular caution in using such tools.
The professor is head of the AI Policy LAB at Umeå University, advises public institutions and companies, and in 2024 gave a lecture on AI at the Vatican. In her book, she writes about the need to monitor and control the development of artificial intelligence.
Jonas Jeppson, head of the secretariat of NPOF, refused to comment on the Dignum case, citing ongoing proceedings. "However, we are observing an increase in the number of cases of irregularities related to references", he acknowledged.
From Stockholm: Daniel Zyśk (PAP)
Source: Google News PL — Crime (pl)