AI as author

The disallowed practice of listing a generative AI system (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude) in the author byline or contributor list of a scholarly work, on the rationale that AI cannot meet authorship criteria requiring accountability, agreement, and the capacity to take public responsibility.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

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ICMJE, COPE, WAME and most major publishers have converged on rejecting AI as an author because authorship requires the ability to be held accountable for the integrity of the work, to consent to publication, and to declare conflicts of interest — none of which an AI system can do. AI contributions must instead be disclosed in methods, acknowledgements, or a dedicated AI-use statement.

References

ICMJE Recommendations (2023 update)
COPE Position Statement on Authorship and AI Tools (2023)
Nature Editorial Policy on Generative AI (2023)

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="AI as author"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-as-author" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-as-author",
  "name": "AI as author",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-as-author",
  "description": "The disallowed practice of listing a generative AI system (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude) in the author byline or contributor list of a scholarly work, on the rationale that AI cannot meet authorship criteria requiring accountability, agreement, and the capacity to take public responsibility.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/genai-disclosure#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-as-author",
  "sameAs": [
    "AI authorship",
    "Chatbot author"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-05-21T01:54:18",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

AI as author

Ask about AI as author

Worked examples

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References

Use in your systems