Code of Ethics Cases at ICLR 2024

As machine learning conferences grow, we as a community need to put more thought and planning into maintaining a fair review process. During the recent round of reviews, several issues pertaining to academic integrity came to our attention.  This prompted us to conduct an investigation, including, e.g., partnering with sister conferences for checking for dual submissions. 

We emphasize that ICLR received over 7000 submissions, and these issues represent only a handful of cases. Most reviewers worked tirelessly to maintain the high standards of our review systems – we would like to thank you all for your efforts. 

Nonetheless, our investigation (much of which was via automated scripts) found multiple cases of plagiarism, dual submissions, and evidence of collusion by groups of reviewers and authors.  These behaviors are all in direct violation of the Code of Ethics, and we have reason to believe that they are happening across many top AI conferences.  

Our current activities include:

• Establishing a committee dedicated to reviewing detected cases and recommending penalties (if appropriate).
• Coordinating with other AI/ML conferences to conduct cross-conference investigations to address these issues.

Note that ICLR uses OpenReview which automatically detects conflict of interests as long as they are added to your profile. Keeping your profile up-to-date is a great way to avoid the possible appearance of a conflict of interest. 

We encourage anyone with additional information to email iclr2024.programchairs@gmail.com or submit via this form (anonymity enabled).  We are interested in evidence of:

• Plagiarism
• Dual submissions
• Collusion

All communications will be treated with the highest confidentiality possible, and identities of anyone coming forward will be protected.