Overwhelmed Peer Review Faces an Uncertain Future in the AI Era

Jason Semprini, a health economist at Des Moines University, studied policies mandating the HPV vaccine for elementary school students and found that such mandates do little to reduce population-wide cervical cancer rates. When he submitted the paper for peer review, a reviewer misread the central finding, believing Semprini was questioning the vaccine's effectiveness rather than the policy's impact. The episode illustrates how peer review, already strained, may face further challenges in the AI era.