Chicago Booth professor's 200 AI-assisted papers in nine months; SSRN removes 257 of his works
The Washington Post reported on Sept 23, 2026 that University of Chicago Booth statistician Nicholas Polson had put his name on more than 200 papers in nine months of 2026, plus up to 14 books. He confirmed he used AI in his research. The preprint server SSRN removed 257 of his solo and co-authored works and froze the upload accounts, citing mainly "the unusual pattern of paper submissions" and secondarily missing AI-use disclosure. It is a high-profile test of how publishing systems handle AI-scale output from established academics.
Key facts
- Over 200 papers in about nine months of 2026, and up to 14 books in the same year (Washington Post)
- SSRN counts: 258 working papers by late August, 104 of them in August, six on a single day; frequent co-author Vadim Sokolov (George Mason) on 100+ (as summarized from the WaPo story on X)
- SSRN removed 257 works over the past month and froze the accounts. SSRN requires disclosure of material AI use, but said the submission pattern, not missing disclosure, was the main problem
- Topics ranged far beyond his field (statistics and mathematics) to chess strategy, TikTok algorithms and Social Security policy; only one paper had been submitted to a journal (AI Weekly)
- Polson told the Post that AI makes a productive researcher more productive and called the criticism jealousy and an attempt to 'hijack my writing process and methods'
- Columbia statistician Andrew Gelman said parts of a paper he read looked like a chatbot wrote them
What happened
Researchers noticed an extraordinary flow of working papers under Polson's name on SSRN, the Elsevier-owned preprint server widely used in economics, finance and law. The Washington Post (reporter Todd Wallack) counted more than 200 papers in about nine months. SSRN took down 257 works and froze the accounts. Polson, a long-established Bayesian statistician, defended AI-assisted productivity and dismissed critics as envious.
Why it matters
Preprint servers and journals were built on the assumption that writing a paper takes weeks of human time. With AI, one established researcher can produce hundreds of papers a year. Platforms are responding with rate- and pattern-based enforcement (SSRN here, arXiv's ban for unchecked AI content earlier in 2026) rather than relying on authors to disclose AI use.
Changelog
- 2026-10-02: created (from leads queue; Zvi AI #188)
Related posts (1)
- Shakthi original ↗ Shakthi @v_shakthi · x · 2026-09-25
Cited as a source by: 2026-09-23-polson-200-ai-assisted-papers-ssrn
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Sources (5)
- pressWashington Post: Nine months, 200 academic papers. One professor's AI-assisted output
- pressAI Weekly: SSRN pulls 257 papers by U. Chicago's Nicholas Polson
- pressThe Asia Business Daily: Professor publishes 200 papers in 9 months, responds to allegations 'They envy me'
- discussionShakthi on X: summary of the WaPo story with SSRN counts
- discussionZvi Mowshowitz: AI #188 (discussion)
id: 2026-09-23-polson-200-ai-assisted-papers-ssrn · updated 2026-10-02 · open in the interactive timeline