Undeclared AI-Assisted Academic Writing as a Form of Research Misconduct
Bor Luen Tang · Science Editor · 2025
The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has broadened the academic editor’s job scope, and one must now worry about undeclared use of generative AI in manuscript preparation. While I agree that regulation of AI in academic publishing requires a tighter framework with better granularity beyond plain declaration, I posit that undeclared AI use is, in principle, a form of research misconduct on the part of the author. This is because such acts potentially constitute manipulation of the research process to produce unreliable, if not inaccurate, data/knowledge, which falls squarely under the research misconduct category of “falsification of research.” Introduction Ever since the emergence of the large language model (LLM)–based AI chatbot ChatGPT in 2021, the use of generative AI (hereafter, AI) in academic writing has been somewhat controversial. While obviously immensely useful in many aspects of research, ChatGPT and many other LLM-based chatbots (henceforth, AI) subsequently introduced in quick succession have also been revolutionary in helping authors to write academic papers. Journals and publishers have quickly enacted rules on generative AI use in manuscript preparation, most of which mandate some form of declaration of such use (and the barring of AI coauthorship). However, several studies,1,2 as highlighted in a recent news article in Nature,3 have identified a small but significant number of papers with no declaration, but which clearly exhibited traces of AI writing. These findings, in addition to the rather eye-catchingly ridiculous figure of a rat with oversized genitalia,4 have deepened the feeling of unease with regards […]