ChatGPT, is this real? The influence of generative AI on writing style in top-tier cybersecurity papers
TLDR
Researchers found that top cybersecurity papers show increased lexical complexity and AI-associated marker words after ChatGPT's 2022 release.
Key contributions
- Analyzed writing styles in top cybersecurity papers (2000-2025).
- Used lexical/syntactic metrics and tracked AI "marker words" in major venues.
- Found a pronounced post-2022 increase in AI marker-word usage across all venues.
- Observed a long-term trend of increasing lexical complexity in cybersecurity papers.
Why it matters
This study highlights how generative AI is subtly changing academic writing in cybersecurity, potentially making papers less accessible. Understanding these shifts is crucial for maintaining clarity and rigor in research communication.
Original Abstract
With the release of ChatGPT in 2022, generative AI has significantly lowered the cost of polishing and rewriting text. Due to its widespread usage, conference organizers instated specific requirements researchers need to adhere to when using GenAI. When asked to rewrite text, GenAI can introduce stylistic changes, often concentrated to a handful of ``marker words`` commonly associated with AI usage. Prior large-scale studies in preprints and biomedical science report post-2022 discontinuities of those marker words and broad linguistic features. This paper investigates whether similar patterns appear in top-tier cybersecurity conference papers (NDSS, USENIX Security, IEEE S\&P, and ACM CCS) over the period 2000-2025. Using text extracted from paper PDFs, we compute lexical and syntactic metrics and track curated marker-word usage. Our findings reveal a gradual long-run drift toward higher lexical complexity and a pronounced post-2022 increase in marker-word usage across all venues showing an emerging trend towards more complex language in cybersecurity papers possibly hindering accessibility.
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