Description: Researchers reportedly traced the appearance of the nonsensical phrase "vegetative electron microscopy" in scientific papers to contamination in AI training data. Testing indicated that large language models such as GPT-3, GPT-4, and Claude 3.5 may reproduce the term. The error allegedly originated from a digitization mistake that merged unrelated words during scanning, and a later translation error between Farsi and English.
Editor Notes: Timeline notes: The phrase "vegetative electron microscopy" reportedly originated from a digitization error in 1950s scientific texts and was later reinforced by a translation mistake in papers published in 2017 and 2019. In 2025, researchers allegedly found that several large language models were reproducing the term, possibly due to training data contamination from Common Crawl.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: OpenAI and Anthropic developed an AI system deployed by OpenAI , Anthropic , Researchers and Scientific authors, which harmed Researchers , Scientific authors , Scientific publishers , Peer reviewers , Scholars , Readers of scientific publications , Scientific record and Academic integrity.
Incident Stats
Risk Subdomain
A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
3.1. False or misleading information
Risk Domain
The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
- Misinformation
Entity
Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
AI
Timing
The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
Post-deployment
Intent
Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Unintentional
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Earlier this year, scientists discovered a peculiar term appearing in published papers: "vegetative electron microscopy".
This phrase, which sounds technical but is actually nonsense, has become a "digital fossil" -- an error preserved and …
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The phrase was so strange it would have stood out even to a non-scientist. Yet "vegetative electron microscopy" had already made it past reviewers and editors at several journals when a Russian chemist and scientific sleuth noticed the odd …
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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