We are still figuring out the details of how to take advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) and also stay on the right side of ethical authorship. Meanwhile:
- Current Guidance:
- For class work, expect guidelines from your instructor. Ask instead of assuming.
- For publication, look for instructions from publishers.
- Some Problems. Watch out for these AI problems:
- Made-up citations --- author names and journal names may be familiar but with parts mixed together.
- The tools may not correctly format citations when asked to use a known style to format bibliographic information.
- Copyright protection does not extend to material created by AI.
- Give credit.
- If you use an AI product for information, text, an illustration, or other significant input, you should give credit as you would to other sources.
- If in doubt, err on the side of caution.
- Citation styles are catching up to the need but you may need to be creative.
- As an Uncredited Aid. Unless you are given other guidance, using AI products --- without acknowledgment --- is acceptable for:
- Help in brainstorming.
- Suggestions on re-wording text.
- Assistance in formatting of the kind that is given by word processing software or other software that would go unacknowledged if not AI.
