Can an artificial intelligence chatbot be the author of a scholarly article?
Open accessAbstract
At the end of 2022, the appearance of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot with amazing writing ability, caused a great sensation in academia. The chatbot turned out to be very capable, but also capable of deception, and the news broke that several researchers had listed the chatbot (including its earlier version) as co-authors of their academic papers. In response, Nature and Science expressed their position that this chatbot cannot be listed as an author in the papers they publish. Since an AI chatbot is not a human being, in the current legal system, the text automatically generated by an AI chatbot cannot be a copyrighted work; thus, an AI chatbot cannot be an author of a copyrighted work. Current AI chatbots such as ChatGPT are much more advanced than search engines in that they produce original text, but they still remain at the level of a search engine in that they cannot take responsibility for their writing. For this reason, they also cannot be authors from the perspective of research ethics.
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There is a growing consensus on the necessity to verify human contribution, originality, and authenticity in academic outputs.
“Therefore, there is a growing consensus on the necessity to verify human contribution, originality, and authenticity in academic outputs (Lee, 2023;Perera Molligoda Arachchige & Stomeo, 2023).”
From GenAI et al.: Cocreation, Authorship, Ownership, Academic Ethics and Integrity in a Time of Generative AI (2024) · cites this paper as Lee, 2023
The Conclusion (page not provided) says the authenticity of AI-generated text must be verified, and the Introduction reports journal policies requiring disclosure of AI use and accountability for authorship. The copyright-law section discusses human authorship, but the paper does not establish a growing consensus that human contribution and originality must also be verified across academic outputs. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Cites
ChatGPT is fun, but not an author
Thorp, H. H. (2023) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.adg7879 · Cited by 1,437 · see citing works
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Research works printed but not linked: 7
- [3]Stokel-Walker C ChatGPT listed as author on research papers: many scientists disapprove Nature 2023 613 620 621 10.1038/d41586-023-00107-z 36653617 · DOI · Paper page
- [4]The AI writing on the wall Nat Mach Intell 2023 5 1 10.1038/s42256-023-00613-9 · DOI
- [5]Springer Nature. Authorship [Internet]. Springer Nature; c2023 [cited 2023 Feb 5]. Available from: https://www.nature.com/nature-portfolio/editorial-policies/authorship
- [6]Tools such as ChatGPT threaten transparent science; here are our ground rules for their use Nature 2023 613 612 10.1038/d41586-023-00191-1 36694020 · DOI · Paper page
- [13]Hugenholtz PB Quintais JP Copyright and artificial creation: does EU copyright law protect AI-assisted output? Int Rev Intellect Prop Compet Law 2021 52 1190 1216 10.1007/s40319-021-01115-0 · DOI
- [17]Ren X “Tencent Dreamwriter”: decision of the People’s Court of Nanshan (District of Shenzhen) 24 December 2019: Case No. (2019) Yue 0305 Min Chu No. 14010 Int Rev Intellect Prop Compet Law 2020 51 652 659 10.1007/s40319-020-00944-9 · DOI
- [29]Writer B. Lithium-ion batteries: a machine-generated summary of current research [Internet]. Springer Nature; 2019 [cited 2023 Feb 5]. Available from: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-16800-1 · DOI · Paper page
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Alqahtani, T., Badreldin, H. A., Alrashed, M., Alshaya, A. I., Alghamdi, S. S., bin Saleh, K., Alowais, S. A., Alshaya, O. A., Rahman, I., Al Yami, M. S., et al. (2023) · Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy · doi:10.1016/j.sapharm.2023.05.016 · Cited by 565 · see citing works
Opportunities and Challenges for ChatGPT and Large Language Models in Biomedicine and Health
Tian, S., Jin, Q., Yeganova, L., Lai, P.-T., Zhu, Q., Chen, X., Yang, Y., Chen, Q., Kim, W., Comeau, D. C., et al. (2023) · Briefings in Bioinformatics · doi:10.1093/bib/bbad493 · Cited by 359 · see citing works
The ethics of disclosing the use of artificial intelligence tools in writing scholarly manuscripts
Hosseini, M., Resnik, D. B., & Holmes, K. (2023) · Research Ethics · doi:10.1177/17470161231180449 · Cited by 253 · see citing works
Bozkurt, A. (2024) · Open Praxis · doi:10.55982/openpraxis.16.1.654 · Cited by 215 · see citing works
Sohail, S. S., Farhat, F., Himeur, Y., Nadeem, M., Madsen, D. Ø., Singh, Y., Atalla, S., & Mansoor, W. (2023) · Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.jksuci.2023.101675 · Cited by 192 · see citing works
“Furthermore, ethical considerations regarding the use of this tool for academic and scientific writing cannot be disregarded (Lee, 2023b).”
InfluentialThe Use of Artificial Intelligence in Writing Scientific Review Articles
Kacena, M. A., Plotkin, L. I., & Fehrenbacher, J. C. (2024) · Current Osteoporosis Reports · doi:10.1007/s11914-023-00852-0 · Cited by 193 · see citing works
Kendall, G., & Teixeira da Silva, J. A. (2024) · Learned Publishing · doi:10.1002/leap.1578 · Cited by 100 · see citing works
Deebel, N. A., & Terlecki, R. (2023) · Urology · doi:10.1016/j.urology.2023.05.010 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Huh, S. (2023) · Child Health Nursing Research · doi:10.4094/chnr.2023.29.4.249 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Lin, A., Chen, Z., Jiang, A., Tang, B., Qi, C., Zhu, L., Mou, W., Gan, W., Zeng, D., Xiao, M., et al. (2026) · International Journal of Surgery · doi:10.1097/js9.0000000000003839 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Panchanadikar, R., Hu, Y., & Freeman, G. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency · doi:10.1145/3805689.3812248 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“By analyzing the experiences of indie game developers, our findings reveal how generative AI systems do not merely serve as neutral productivity aids or standalone social technologies, but increasingly occupy multiple, overlapping roles within creative labor such as indie game development.”
- Authors
- Lee, J. Y.
- Affiliations
- Hanyang University (KR)
- Corresponding author
- Lee, Ju Yoen
- ORCID
- Lee, Ju Yoen
- Venue
- Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions
- Published
- 2023-02-27
- Volume
- 20
- Pages
- 6
- ISSN
- 1738-1339 (ISSN-L)
- 1975-5937
- PMC
- PMC10033224
- OpenAlex
- W4323981835
- Cited by
- 108
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 34 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 4.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Law, AI, and Intellectual Property
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Keywords
- AI chatbots, ChatGPT, authorship, co-authorship, copyright, research ethics, AI-generated text, scholarly publishing, authorship criteria
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