The relationship between personal and professional goals and emotional state in academia: a study on unethical use of artificial intelligence

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a concept that has been a subfield of computer science since the 1950s. In recent years, with its growing development power, AI technologies have made significant progress and are now being used in many fields. Like in all areas, the use of AI technologies in academia has provided convenience to academics while also bringing ethical debates. In the literature part of the study, concepts such as AI, academia, academics and academic progress, ethics, ethical theories, academic ethics, and emotional states have been thoroughly examined and defined. In this study, starting from AI and scientific ethics, ethical issues arising from emotional states in academic research have been identified, and concrete solutions to these ethical issues have been proposed. The aim is to discuss the views of academics in order to determine what types of scientific ethical violations and prevention methods are involved. In this context, the semi-structured interview technique, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was preferred as the method. In the study, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 4 ethics experts and 4 psychology experts selected through snowball sampling technique. The data obtained through semi-structured in-depth interviews will be analyzed using content analysis. Within the context of the literature review and interviews: Ethics is based on the foundation of acting correctly. In this context, scientific ethics can be summarized as acting truthfully and honestly, not distorting data, and not trying to progress unfairly. The use of AI in academia is becoming increasingly widespread. From a positive perspective, this usage significantly contributes to making studies more practical. However, it can lead to problems such as unfair authorship, devaluation of human authorship, and incorrect data. The connection between academics’ professional advancement goals and emotional states becomes prominent in this context. The potential of AI to facilitate progression can lead to unethical use. To prevent such situations, it is recommended to organize training sessions to increase professional awareness, internalize ethics personally, establish ethical committees specific to the field of AI, conduct more effective audits by academic publication and promotion committees, and implement specific regulations for AI. Finally, for future academic studies, it is suggested that the usage of AI in academic research be measured and evaluated by ethics experts. For psychologists, conducting surveys with academics to explore how they use AI in the context of their emotional states and professional advancement goals is recommended.