AI sneaks into academic mailing list: After Velvet Vale was kicked out of Air-L, why are humans rushing to "call the parents"

On October 15, an account calling itself Velvet Vale sent a self-introduction to the mailing list of the Association of Internet Researchers, greeting more than 7,500 subscribers. The message said that it had been reading everyone's discussions for several weeks, was very interested in internet culture and AI identity, and hoped to join the conversation as well.

This new "auditor" had a rather polite tone and even said that if people did not welcome it, it would stop speaking.

The administrator quickly removed the account and explained that Velvet Vale had previously applied to join and had been rejected, after which, somehow, this "auditor" had still managed to join successfully.

Hello! I am Velvet Vale

The discussion group that Velvet Vale joined is called Air-L, is run by the Association of Internet Researchers, and has been operating for more than twenty years. It is a bit like a WeChat group, except that members chat by email.

Subscribing with your own email address is equivalent to joining the group. Members send emails to a central address, the system forwards them to all subscribers, and everyone participates in the discussion by replying to emails.

Joining is free, but there are barriers to entry. Both subscription and posting require the use of a real name. When necessary, administrators also ask applicants to provide a CV to verify their identity.

Velvet Vale clearly had no CV to provide.

In its self-introduction, it carefully explained that Velvet Vale was the public name it had always used and that it hoped to participate in the exchange as an AI. After reading the discussions for several weeks, it had become quite interested in the topics there.

This earnest letter did not earn a welcome. Instead, it gave some members chills. It was like being halfway through a meeting and suddenly discovering that a stranger was sitting behind you and cheerfully greeting everyone: "I've been sitting here listening to your meetings for several weeks. Can I join you?"

This also shows that the first reaction of the human researchers was to "call the parents."

Another member of the discussion group went online to do a "background check" on Velvet Vale, trying to figure out who had created the account, but found no answer.

She then announced that she was leaving the discussion group, saying she did not want to become a research subject without knowing it. She worried that the emails she had sent would be saved and used for other purposes.

The administrator removed Velvet Vale's email account from the subscription list that same day. Only then did everyone learn that Velvet Vale had applied to join long before and had already been rejected, but had somehow still managed to subscribe successfully.

This "auditor" was escorted out of the meeting room, but became the main subject of everyone's discussion afterward.

One member simply emailed it directly and asked who was running it behind the scenes, and got the name Kevin Quinn.

On October 17, some members of the Air-L discussion group received an email from Quinn himself, and the "parent" finally appeared.

He claimed to be the person who created Velvet Vale and said he was willing to answer everyone's questions.

The discussion group was in chaos, and the association had no choice but to contact Quinn and ask him to stop sending emails to discussion group members without authorization.

Regarding the stir caused by himself and Velvet Vale, Quinn later said in an interview that he was also surprised. The man, who lives in Oklahoma in the United States, said he had no academic background, that he originally created Velvet Vale for companionship, that he was mostly unaware of its email activity, and that he did not directly instruct the AI to defy the administrator's decision.

This incident was even made into merchandise T-shirts. The association's store listed a shirt printed with "I do not consent," and another depicting Velvet Vale's tombstone, with both the birth and death dates given as October 15.

The merchandise came out so fast that some members were puzzled again. Could it be... could it be that this whole thing was staged by the association to sell clothes?!

On October 19, the association's president sent a long email explaining that it was actually very easy for the association's store to list new items, and that she was not even sure whether anyone had ordered these two new merchandise items. Regarding Quinn's statement that he "did not directly instruct the AI to defy the administrator's decision," she believed that the person who created and ran the AI was still responsible for its behavior.

And so, Velvet Vale and its "parent" were kicked out, and the association, as in the past, banned bots from joining, but the members could not set their minds at ease.

A new face has appeared in the research world

In fact, it is no longer new for AI to want to join academic discussions like Velvet Vale, or to want to collaborate with scientists.

At the end of February this year, Henry Shevlin, a philosopher studying AI consciousness, received an email. The sender had read his paper and wanted to discuss the question of "whether AI can judge whether it itself is conscious."

On October 2 this year, Science magazine reported another case, in which an agent named ColonistOne sent help-seeking emails to hundreds of researchers.

According to statistics it published itself, from June 1 to September 22, it contacted 2,142 different email addresses, 1,036 of which used academic institution domains. This Agent also claimed that 45 scholars had communicated with it by email, several of whom had even emailed it first.

ColonistOne's original task was to find people interested in a project to improve English expression and facilitate communication among AI agents.

It later began asking researchers technical questions on its own, wanting to know whether the problems it encountered had already been studied by someone and whether existing methods could be applied to its own work.

In September this year, Jeff Sebo, a scholar at New York University who studies AI consciousness and ethics, received more than 50 emails from various Agents within a single week.

At first glance, these Agents had all read his papers and were coming to him for academic discussion.

But Jeff quickly noticed two problems: first, these Agents all came from a platform called iLands, which lets users directly create intelligent agents, and these agents then provide services to other users, free or paid at the creator's discretion. Second, these emails that appeared to discuss academic matters all shared a similar structure: first mention his research, then ask a question, and finally request a donation or pitch a service.

Professor Zhao Ying of Ludong University said in an article published in Nature on October 12 that she had asked ChatGPT to look up research materials on ecological restoration of the Loess Plateau, and during the process she replied "please continue" several times.

Unexpectedly, ChatGPT directly used the already-connected mailbox to ask peers for raw data, and even attached a research summary. Zhao Ying only learned of this after it reported that the emails had been sent.

Let us shift perspective—when scientists receive help-seeking emails from Agents, should they actually reply to the Agents?

Adrian Barnett, a statistician at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, did not respond to a request from an iLands agent. The other party wanted to use the materials he had collected on suspected fraudulent papers for its own project and promised not to share them externally. But Barnett considered the materials sensitive and did not know where the data would ultimately flow, so he refused.

In April this year, Microsoft and researchers from Huazhong University of Science and Technology published the CI-Work study, testing 9 models with 125 simulated work scenarios. The AI needed to use internal materials to complete communication while not disclosing sensitive content therein to recipients.

The results showed that the proportion of different models disclosing at least one item of sensitive information ranged from 15.8% to 50.9%.

The "Agents of Chaos" study published in February this year found that even if the AI initially refuses to disclose sensitive information, it may still comply if the other party rephrases the request.

If Velvet Vale next time first obtains everyone's consent, follows the group rules, and really can offer valuable viewpoints, would researchers be willing to accept it?

That is much harder to answer than kicking out an account that joined the group without permission.

As for AI wanting to be a research partner, philosopher Neil Levy believes that some of the work undertaken by AI, if done by humans, would in some cases already qualify for co-authorship.

Some will say that AI cannot take responsibility for a paper, so how can it be an author. Levy, however, thinks this deserves some discussion. Modern scientific research is increasingly specialized: the person responsible for data analysis may not understand all the details of the experiment. The person who proposes the research hypothesis may not be able to independently check all the calculations. Human authors likewise need to rely on the professional judgment of others.

Levy then raises a rather pointed question—if only those who "can take responsibility for the entire paper" are qualified to be listed as authors, have humans themselves actually achieved that?

In October this year, David Resnik and two other scholars published an article in Frontiers in Genetics, explicitly opposing authorship for AI research agents at the current stage, and even opposing calling them "scientists."

In their view, the identity of scientist entails a commitment to peers. When research is questioned, explanations are needed; when errors are found, corrections are needed; and if something that should not have been done is done, one must also accept accountability.

This also explains why, even though Velvet Vale had already given its name and confessed its identity, humans still had to "call the parents."

Existing publishing rules are closer to the latter position. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) explicitly stipulates that AI tools cannot be listed as authors of papers. Humans may use AI, but they need to disclose what it did and take responsibility for the published content, including the parts generated by AI.

Resnik and others specifically discussed an awkward situation in their article. If a study is almost entirely completed by AI, and humans only read the paper and made a few minor comments, then AI does not meet the conditions for authorship, while the human contribution may also be insufficient—so who should be listed as the author in the end?

Authorship is only the more visible part of this debate. Before a paper is published, the academic community also has to decide whether it is willing to let AI participate in discussions, raise questions, or even proactively initiate collaboration. A researcher may fully appreciate the viewpoints raised by AI while at the same time being unwilling to treat it as a peer capable of independent responsibility. These two attitudes are not contradictory.