The seven lies of the AI expert who cited himself thousands of times on scientific papers
Only one person has presented his candidacy for rector of one of the oldest academic institutions in the world, the University of Salamanca. He is Professor Juan Manuel Corchado, who specializes in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. On March 15 EL PAÍS published a story revealing that for years this academic has been enhancing his resume with tricks, publishing odd documents such as a pseudo-study on Covid with four insubstantial paragraphs and citing a hundred references to his own work. Corchado, a 52-year-old native of Salamanca, denied claims of fraud and continued on his path towards the university’s highest position, once held by the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. On May 7, 33,000 university students are called to vote for a single candidate. If there are no surprises, the candidate will assume command of the university, with an annual budget of almost €290 million.
Corchado told seven lies in his reply to the information published by this newspaper and which he posted on his website with the title Defending the truth. The professor claimed that the documents with thousands of self-citations were simply “class exercises posted on a university website.” That’s the first lie. The reality is that Corchado used the same trick in his presentations at conferences. In a two-page abstract for a conference in Chennai, India, he cited himself 200 times. The academic knew that the Google Scholar search engine would track these documents and take them into account to develop its metrics, which is why Corchado appears to be one of the experts in artificial intelligence with the greatest impact in the world, without actually being one. Corchado has ignored new requests for information from this newspaper.
