arXiv — Machine Learning · · 3 min read

Intelligence Is Not the Bottleneck: Validating an LLM First-Pass Manuscript Score Against Peer-Review Outcomes

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Computer Science > Machine Learning

arXiv:2606.15887 (cs)
[Submitted on 14 Jun 2026]

Title:Intelligence Is Not the Bottleneck: Validating an LLM First-Pass Manuscript Score Against Peer-Review Outcomes

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Abstract:Large language model (LLM) systems are increasingly proposed to assist peer review, yet most evaluations judge the prose of machine-generated review text, not the validity of the numeric score a system assigns. We validate AIPR, which reads a submitted manuscript and emits five 0-100 quality dimensions and a weighted overall score, against the public decision outcomes of a major machine learning venue. AIPR grades by prompting alone, with no fine-tuning on reviews or decisions. Across 300 ICLR submissions with public decision tiers and reviewer ratings, graded under a frozen pipeline with hypotheses pre-registered before any score met any outcome, the overall score separates rejected from accepted submissions (AUROC 0.82, 95% CI 0.78-0.87), rises monotonically across tiers, and tracks the mean reviewer rating. The signal is strongest where we claim it: the lowest-scoring fifth is rejected far above the base rate, with oral papers absent. The validity comes mostly from the model: a one-paragraph prompt on the same model discriminates almost as well as the full pipeline (the small gap favours the pipeline but does not meet the pre-declared criterion, p = 0.09). What the engineering adds is reliability and a grounded review: AIPR's score barely moves across repeated runs (0.7 vs. 2.8 points within-paper SD) where the bare prompt swings, and the same pass returns a rubric-structured, evidence-grounded review rather than a bare number, with the human keeping the decision.
Comments: 34 pages, 14 figures
Subjects: Machine Learning (cs.LG); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
Cite as: arXiv:2606.15887 [cs.LG]
  (or arXiv:2606.15887v1 [cs.LG] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.15887
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

Submission history

From: Costa Georgantas [view email]
[v1] Sun, 14 Jun 2026 16:13:15 UTC (255 KB)
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