ChatGPT can’t be given author credit, says top academic publisher

Springer Nature, the leading academic publisher globally, has made its stance clear regarding the utilization of AI tools in writing scientific papers. They have stated that AI software such as ChatGPT cannot be acknowledged as an author in their published research papers. Nevertheless, Springer Nature supports scientists utilizing AI to assist with writing or generating ideas for their research, as long as the authors properly reveal this contribution.

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A few published papers and scientific articles have credited ChatGPT and prior large language models (LLMs) as authors. However, the level and character of the contribution from these tools is different from one instance to the next.

An article in Oncoscience journal utilized ChatGPT to advocate for the consumption of a specific drug within the context of Pascal's wager, with the AI-generated text prominently labeled. In contrast, a preprint study investigating the bot's capacity to clear the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) only mentions the bot's role through a statement saying that the program "assisted in writing several portions of the manuscript."

Opposing arguments against granting authorship to AI highlight that the software is incapable of fulfilling the necessary responsibilities, as stated by Skipper and Springer Nature. AI cannot be held responsible for a publication, cannot hold intellectual property rights for its output, and cannot communicate with other researchers and the media to clarify and respond to questions about its work.

Earlier in the year, a leading machine learning academic conference prohibited the use of all AI tools for composing papers. However, authors were allowed to use such software to "refine" and "revise" their work. The distinction between writing and editing can be difficult to determine, but for Springer Nature, this application is also permissible.

The significance of this is emphasized by the diverse range of tasks that AI can perform. AI tools can generate and paraphrase text, iterate experiment design, or serve as a virtual lab partner for brainstorming ideas. AI-driven software such as Semantic Scholar can search for research papers and summarize their content. Additionally, Skipper points out that AI writing tools can provide support for researchers whose primary language is not English.