The Christmas issue of The BMJ is by tradition a mix of light-hearted content combined with rigorous, peer-reviewed research, with many Christmas articles among The BMJ’s most memorable studies. For example, an article titled 'The Darwin Awards: sex difference in idiotic behaviour', published in the Christmas 2014 BMJ, received more than 700,000 page impressions in just 12 months.
In this year’s issue, one study reviewed the quality of AI-generated titles of potential Christmas BMJ articles, finding they were as attractive and entertaining as real titles, although performance of the AI was enhanced by human intervention. The study, 'Ghost in the machine or monkey with a typewriter – generating titles for Christmas research articles in The BMJ using artificial intelligence: observational study', suggested that AI could have a role in generating worthwhile hypotheses or directions for future research.
The researchers used the titles of
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