Can ChatGPT be an author? A study of artificial intelligence authorship policies in top academic journals

Abstract

Academic publishers have quickly responded to the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on authorship and academic integrity. However, there remains a lack of understanding about AI authorship policies and the attitude of academic journals towards these tools. This study aims to address this gap by examining the AI authorship policies of 300 top academic journals during the period of late‐spring 2023. Over half of the journals examined have an AI authorship policy and guidelines for acknowledging AI usage in manuscript preparation. These acknowledgments are typically made in the methods or acknowledgement sections, although some journals have introduced a new, special section on AI usage. The study also found that AI authorship policies may differ depending on the publisher and discipline of the journal. Many publishers have adopted uniform AI authorship policies that are implemented across all journals that they publish. These results are useful for publishers, editors, and researchers who want to learn more about how academic journals are dealing with the emergence of large language models and other AI tools in scholarly communications.

Ethical concerns for using artificial intelligence chatbots in research and publication: Evidences from Saudi Arabia

“…These concerns are connected to the ethics of integrating AI into education and research. The first concern was associated with the authorship of chatbots (Lee, 2023;Lund & Naheem, 2023), like ChatGPT, in scientific publications since they have substantial contributions to the research. The question of "Can chatbots be considered a co-author in research?"…”

Artificial Intelligence in Pediatrics: Learning to Walk Together

“…Of these, only a small number of them prohibited the use of these models for any purpose during the publication process, including the prestigious journals like Science and Nature . 84 Expectedly, those that do not prohibit their use expect authors to clearly state the manner, reason, and extent of the use of AI models. Currently, there are several tools available online assumed to have the capability to detect AI-generated texts and contents to a scale.…”

Policies on Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Among Academic Publishers: A Cross-Sectional Audit

“…Despite the novelty of the academic publisher policies introduced for the responsible use of AI chatbots by authors, there are similar cross-sectional audits examining academic publisher or journal policies for authors' use of AI chatbots, as of April 2024 [5,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. There are also scoping reviews and meta-analyses examining the policies and attitudes of educational institutions, libraries, and other individual studies that explore the role of ChatGPT, particularly, in scientific and medical research [21][22][23].…”

“…A common theme uncovered in this study and comparative literature is the restriction on listing AI tools as co-authors despite the permitted, declared use of the AI chatbot(s) [5,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. In fact, common ethics forums, such as the Committee of Publishing Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), also propounded that this criterion to be adopted by academic publishers.…”

“…AI is an interdisciplinary field of science and technology that plays an expanding, dominating role in everyday human lives. AI refers to the design of machines that can mimic or surpass the mental capacities and intelligence of humans [5, 6]. AI developments since the 1950s have led to advances that allow computers and computer-controlled robots to analyze, generalize, problem-solve, and adapt to new circumstances [7].…”