Can ChatGPT be an author? A study of artificial intelligence authorship policies in top academic journals

Abstract

Academic publishers have quickly responded to the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on authorship and academic integrity. However, there remains a lack of understanding about AI authorship policies and the attitude of academic journals towards these tools. This study aims to address this gap by examining the AI authorship policies of 300 top academic journals during the period of late-spring 2023. Over half of the journals examined have an AI authorship policy and guidelines for acknowledging AI usage in manuscript preparation. These acknowledgments are typically made in the methods or acknowledgement sections, although some journals have introduced a new, special section on AI usage. The study also found that AI authorship policies may differ depending on the publisher and discipline of the journal. Many publishers have adopted uniform AI authorship policies that are implemented across all journals that they publish. These results are useful for publishers, editors, and researchers who want to learn more about how academic journals are dealing with the emergence of large language models and other AI tools in scholarly communications.