Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies

 

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in writing

 

This policy aims to provide greater transparency and guidance to authors, readers, reviewers, editors in relation to generative AI and AI-assisted technologies. Please note the policy only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyze and draw insights from data as part of the research process.

Where authors use AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, these technologies should only be used to improve readability and language of the work and not to replace key authoring tasks such as producing scientific, pedagogic, or medical insights, drawing scientific conclusions, or providing clinical recommendations. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control and all work should be reviewed and edited carefully, because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. The authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Authors should disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies and a statement will appear in the published work. Declaring the use of these technologies supports transparency and trust between authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and contributors and facilitates compliance with the terms of use of the relevant tool or technology.

There are a number of artificial intelligence technologies with Large Language Model (LLM) that can give advice or create content that can be useful in your studies. ChatGPT by OpenAI and Gemini by Google are widely known and commonly used as generative AI and AI-assisted technologies for academic writing.

As generative artificial intelligence is an emerging technology, there is a lot of debate about how to incorporate it into existing referencing systems. It differs from many other academic sources, as there is no specific author and it is currently not able to be reproduced or recovered. Further, generative artificial intelligence can be used as more than just a source of information. You may use it to brainstorm ideas, or refine your writing. In cases like this, a citation would not be appropriate.

Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans. Each (co-) author is accountable for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved and authorship requires the ability to approve the final version of the work and agree to its submission. Authors are also responsible for ensuring that the work is original, that the stated authors qualify for authorship, and the work does not infringe third party rights, and should familiarize themselves with the journal's policies e.g. Author Guideline, Publication Ethics, and Plagiarism and Retraction Policy before they submit.

Further to this, and in accordance with COPE’s position statement on AI tools, Large Language Models cannot be credited with authorship as they are incapable of conceptualising a research design without human direction and cannot be accountable for the integrity, originality, and validity of the published work.

The Editorial Team of AIJOSH recommend that a combination of the following should be used to acknowledge the use of generative artificial intelligence in academic work:

  • Written acknowledgment of the use of generative artificial intelligence and its extent.
  • Descriptions of how the information was generated (including the prompts used).

 

Generative AI usage key principles

  • Copywriting any part of an article using a generative AI tool/LLM would not be permissible, including the generation of the abstract or the literature review, for as per AIJOSH's authorship criteria, the author(s) must be responsible for the work and accountable for its accuracy, integrity, and validity.
  • The generation or reporting of results using a generative AI tool/LLM is not permissible, for as per AIJOSH's authorship criteria, the author(s) must be responsible for the creation and interpretation of their work and accountable for its accuracy, integrity, and validity.
  • The in-text reporting of statistics using a generative AI tool/LLM is not permissible due to concerns over the authenticity, integrity, and validity of the data produced, although the use of such common tools to aid in the analysis of the work would be permissible.
  • Copyediting an article using a generative AI tool/LLM in order to improve its language and readability would be permissible as this mirrors standard tools already employed to improve spelling and grammar, and uses existing author-created material, rather than generating wholly new content, while the author(s) remains responsible for the original work.
  • The submission and publication of images created by AI tools or large-scale generative models is not permitted.

 

Declaration of the generated material

At a minimum, you should include a declaration of use that explains what technologies, if any, you have used to generate material in working on your assessment.

When you have adapted material generated by artificial intelligence (e.g., if you were to completely rewrite and paraphrase your manuscript), or the material is being used to simply demonstrate the capability of generative AI, it is not appropriate to use in-text citations or references.

In these situations, you should add a declaration which:

  • Provides a written acknowledgment of the use of generative artificial intelligence.
  • Specifies which technology was used.
  • Includes explicit descriptions of how the information was generated.
  • Identifies the prompts used.
  • Explains how the output was used in your work.

 

A suggested format

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THE USE OF GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

I acknowledge the use of [insert AI system(s) and link] to [specific use of generative artificial intelligence]. The prompts used include [list of prompts]. The output from these prompts was used to [explanation of use].

For example:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THE USE OF GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The authors acknowledge the use of ChatGPT (https://chat.openai.com/) to refine the academic language and accuracy of our work. On 6 July 2024, the authors submitted several paragraphs with the instruction to "Improve the academic tone and accuracy of language, including grammatical structures, punctuation and vocabulary" and "Please check the English grammar and make corrections where possible to improve the readability of the text." The output (here) was then modified further to better represent our tone and style of writing. This acknowledgement has been approved by the editorial team of this journal.

 

References:

COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics. COPE position statement. Retrieved from https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author?ct=t(member-insight-ai-feb-2023)

Elsevier. The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in writing for Elsevier. Retrieved from https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/the-use-of-generative-ai-and-ai-assisted-technologies-in-writing-for-elsevier 

Monash University. Acknowledging the use of generative artificial intelligence. Retrieved from https://www.monash.edu/student-academic-success/build-digital-capabilities/create-online/acknowledging-the-use-of-generative-artificial-intelligence#tabs__3254796-03