Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A journal rejecting a manuscript that listed 'GPT-4' as a co-author, citing ICMJE
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A 2022 preprint that listed an AI as co-author predates the consensus and is now considered non-compliant
Editorial commentary
The AI co-authorship rejection refers to the 2023 update to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations stating explicitly that chatbots and generative AI systems cannot be listed as authors, because they cannot satisfy any of ICMJE’s four authorship criteria — most decisively, the requirement to be accountable for the work and to formally approve the version to be published.
Why this is the reference point the rest of the AI-authorship family cites
This is the single most cited source for journal policy on AI authorship, and it established the operating consensus that AI involvement is disclosed, not credited — the principle covered generally under acknowledgement, not authorship, for AI. Most major publishers and editorial associations, including Nature Portfolio, Elsevier, Springer Nature, and COPE itself, adopted compatible positions within months of the ICMJE update, which is why the 2023 ICMJE statement functions as the de facto industry baseline even for journals that never separately issued their own AI-authorship policy.
What it does not resolve
The 2023 position settles the authorship question but leaves open, and downstream policy has had to separately address, exactly what disclosure must contain (AI tool disclosure), where it must appear (generative-AI disclosure statement), and how responsibility for AI-assisted errors is assigned (author responsibility for AI use) — each of those is a separate convention that built on top of the 2023 authorship rejection rather than being settled by it directly.
Sources
ICMJE Recommendations, May 2023 update; COPE Position Statement, “Authorship and AI Tools” (13 February 2023).
Also known as
ICMJE 2023 AI authorship rule
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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