On the future of peer-review and, other musings

Dear Reader,

I note that a four-day international paediatric neurosurgery course is currently underway, starting today in Manila. The programme is excellent. I was chatting with a distinguished neurosurgeon a few days earlier. He mentioned the challenge of preparing a talk for a mixed audience of residents, fellows, and practising neurosurgeons. If the audience is mainly composed of juniors, an arduously prepared lecture often goes over their heads, missing those who need the basics. However, the audience's seniors would not want the basics.

AI seems to dominate most of my coffee-time discussions nowadays. I was chatting with another colleague regarding the impact of AI on critical thinking. He pointed out that most of the general populace had abandoned or never had critical thinking. Most cultures, countries, and institutions (including hospitals) prefer members who are not critical in their thinking.

At a recent webinar, a faculty member related his friend's experience of defending a PhD thesis. He mentioned that his friend had to work hard to convince the panel assessing him that the thesis had indeed been written by himself without help from AI. The default position is “must have used AI to write the thesis.”

Academic publishing has been in turmoil since the emergence of the Internet, and now more so with AI. The main concern has been the use of AI to draft manuscripts. However, the concern lately is that peer reviewers might be using AI to do the reviewing. Where society and companies prioritise economy and expediency, most journals will likely use AI reviewers, provided the reviewed manuscripts are not scraped by the AI for training its model. Prestigious journals will charge those submitting manuscripts to pay for peer reviews, and human peer reviewers will be paid for their services.

I have made a few general comments. The aim is to provoke you to chew on the points rather than me making any assertions.

Thank you, and I wish you a good day!

G Narenthiran MB ChB BSc(medSci) MRCSE FEBNS FRCS(SN)
g_narenthiran@hotmail.com
May 7, 2026

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