Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies are relatively new but are developing quickly. With the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the capabilities of generative AI to create fluent text was introduced to the public in general. ChatGPT's capabilities were upgraded in March 2023 with the introduction of ChatGPT-4. Generative AI has also been incorporated into Microsoft's Bing search engine, and Google has released its own version, called Bard. Generative AI chatbots have shown a remarkable ability to produce coherent and grammatically sound text in response to user queries. ChatGPT is the most well-known of these, but Google and Microsoft have launched their own examples with Bard and Bing AI (respectively).
It is important to understand that when we talk about “AI” in this context, we are not talking about actual understanding or intelligence, but rather a computer science field that aims to automate complex tasks that were previously only accomplishable through human intelligence. This discipline specifically falls into a section of Machine Learning called Deep Learning, which utilizes a neural network model to create Large Language Models (LLMs). These LLMS draw from huge sets of data and calculate what type of word and piece of text are most likely to come next in a response, resulting in natural seeming text. A technical report from OpenAI is available at https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2303.08774, while an excellent, if lengthy, description about how this works is available at Stephen Wolfram’s blog (https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work/).
Publisher policy on the use of generative AI is constantly changing and varies widely form one publisher to the next or even one journal to the next. Researchers interested in publishing work aided by generative AI should consult with their publisher regarding the use of those tools. As a service to researchers, we offer the following list of the policies from some of the major publishers.
Researchers should NEVER submit the key parts of their research or manuscripts for analysis to any of the AI tools for any reason. By doing so, the text of your manuscript becomes part of the dataset used by the AI and thus becomes publicly accessible and can be considered published. This can jeopardize your ability to publish the manuscript in most academic journals, as the manuscript would have already been published. It can also prevent you from being able to patent any inventions discussed in your manuscript because the information shared with the AI can be considered prior art of disclosure by the patent office.
To learn more about using AI tools, see our guide:
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