LibGuides: AI Tools and Resources: Publisher Policies

Generative AI as an Artificial Author

An author of scholarly articles and books is more than a writer. Authorship includes accountability and legal responsibility for the work. Many publishers have clearly made this distinction in new policies on the use of GAI in scholarly work.

ChatGPT listed as author on research papers: many scientists disapprove
by Chris Stokel-Walker on Nature News. 18 January 2023.
AI Ethics in Scholarly Communication.
The publishers association of International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) issued a White Paper in 2021 as “an attempt to lay a solid foundation for an ethical and trustworthy implementation of AI in STM publishing and in scholarly communications at large”
Generative AI in Scholarly Communications: Ethical and Practical Guidelines for the Use of Generative AI in the Publication Process
The publishers association of International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) has issued a “paper [that] provides best-practice principles and recommendations for authors, editorial teams, reviewers, and vendors, ensuring a responsible and ethical approach to the use of GenAI tools.”

Publisher Policies and Requirements

Before including generative AI tools in a project you intend to get published, make sure your target journal and publisher allow the integration of AI generated text and images with manuscript submissions. Below are a few example publisher statements or policy on the use of AI in article submissions.

Elsevier AI author policy
Elsevier’s new AI author policy focuses on ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record and aims to provide greater transparency and guidance to authors, readers, reviewers, editors and contributors.
IEEE Submission Policies
IEEE Guidelines on AI-Generated Text: The use of artificial intelligence (AI)–generated text in an article shall be disclosed in the acknowledgements section of any paper submitted to an IEEE Conference or Periodical. The sections of the paper that use AI-generated text shall have a citation to the AI system used to generate the text.
Nature Statement on Authorship and AI
“Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript.”
PLOS ONE
PLOS expects that articles should report the listed authors’ own work and ideas. Any contributions made by other sources must be clearly and correctly attributed.
Sage Assistive and Generative AI Guidelines for Authors
Policy outlining the use of both AI assistive and generative AI technologies in manuscript submissions.
Taylor & Francis Clarifies the Responsible use of AI Tools in Academic Content Creation
News post summarizing the changes Taylor & Francis made to author and editorial policy pages regarding the use of generative AI.