Breaking the Illusion of Review Reliability under Static Evaluation: SCOPE Fuzzing for LLM-based Scientific Reviewers

arXiv:2609.37097v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The rapid growth of submissions and reviewing workload has accelerated the use of large language models (LLMs) in peer review. Prior studies suggest that LLM-based reviewers can penalize content perturbations, such as overclaiming, indicating a certain degree of reliability. Yet these conclusions are largely based on a narrow set of perturbation strategies instantiated with static templates, providing limited evidence of actual reliability. In this paper, we construct a three-level evaluation framework covering perturbations to surface presentation, argumentative logic, and value judgment. Experiments on representative LLM-based reviewers reveal two limitations of static evaluation: stratified vulnerability, where perturbation effects depend on whether the paper's original review score is high or low, and perturbation undercoverage, where a single template misses vulnerabilities exposed by diverse realizations. To address these limitations, we propose SCOPE-Fuzzer, a strategy-aware fuzzer that combines feedback-driven strategy selection with adaptive mutation of paper content. By iteratively probing reviewers with dynamic perturbations, SCOPE-Fuzzer consistently uncovers vulnerabilities overlooked by static evaluation and other baselines.

Abstract:The rapid growth of submissions and reviewing workload has accelerated the use of large language models (LLMs) in peer review. Prior studies suggest that LLM-based reviewers can penalize content perturbations, such as overclaiming, indicating a certain degree of reliability. Yet these conclusions are largely based on a narrow set of perturbation strategies instantiated with static templates, providing limited evidence of actual reliability. In this paper, we construct a three-level evaluation framework covering perturbations to surface presentation, argumentative logic, and value judgment. Experiments on representative LLM-based reviewers reveal two limitations of static evaluation: stratified vulnerability, where perturbation effects depend on whether the paper's original review score is high or low, and perturbation undercoverage, where a single template misses vulnerabilities exposed by diverse realizations. To address these limitations, we propose SCOPE-Fuzzer, a strategy-aware fuzzer that combines feedback-driven strategy selection with adaptive mutation of paper content. By iteratively probing reviewers with dynamic perturbations, SCOPE-Fuzzer consistently uncovers vulnerabilities overlooked by static evaluation and other baselines.

Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)

arXiv:2609.37097 [cs.AI]

(or arXiv:2609.37097v1 [cs.AI] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.37097 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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Breaking the Illusion of Review Reliability under Static Evaluation: SCOPE Fuzzing for LLM-based Scientific Reviewers

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