A recent editorial essay by Gazi Islam and Michelle Greenwood delves into the ethical complexities surrounding Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and its impact on academic authorship. Published in the Journal of Business Ethics, the essay argues that GenAI draws on a “hypercommons” of collectively produced inputs and labor that are largely invisible or untraceable. This dynamic, the authors contend, threatens the moral agency involved in scholarly production and could precipitate a crisis of academic authorship.
GenAI products, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, function by mining vast amounts of available data and generating text in response to prompts. This process has raised a critical question in academic circles: who, or what, is the true author of these texts? The essay posits that the data commons feeding GenAI is related to the notion of ‘the author,’ a concept central to academic institutions but fraught with ethical implications.
The authors introduce the term “hypercommons” to describe the digital landscape from which GenAI draws its inputs. This term emphasizes the massively distributed and socially anchored nature of the data used by GenAI, while also highlighting the potential for exploitation by private interests. The essay explores how the erosion of individual authorship and moral agency can lead to a proliferation of pseudoscientific texts and undermine the integrity of scholarly production.
The essay discusses the historical and theoretical underpinnings of authorship, drawing on thinkers like Foucault, who argued that the notion of the individual author is a relatively recent and historically contingent phenomenon. As GenAI technologies evolve, the distinction between human and machine authorship becomes increasingly blurred, challenging traditional norms of academic accountability and merit.
In the context of academic communities, the digitalization of the commons affects the core institution of authorship. Scholarly recognition, traditionally based on individual contributions and accountability, is jeopardized by the automated generation of text and data. The essay raises concerns about the ethical implications of using GenAI for data analysis and text production, noting that the quality and accuracy of GenAI outputs are often questionable and require careful scrutiny.
The essay identifies several key ethical concerns related to the use of GenAI in academic production. First, the difficulty of attributing individual moral agency when texts are supplemented or supplanted by GenAI. Second, the external pressures on authors to conform to institutional norms that may include the use of GenAI. Third, the internal challenges authors face in maintaining a sense of individual agency and ethical responsibility amidst the pervasive influence of GenAI tools.
The authors propose two possible responses to these challenges. The first involves reinforcing mechanisms of individual responsibility and reward, maintaining traditional norms of authorship by identifying and attributing contributions with greater granularity. Some academic journals have already adopted policies to distinguish between human and machine contributions, but these measures can be difficult to implement and enforce.
The second response entails rethinking the social organization of scholarship in the absence of individual authorship. This approach envisions a more collective form of academic production, decoupling rewards from individual outputs and focusing on collective contributions and participation. However, this model would require significant changes to current academic norms and practices, including new ways to ensure accountability and manage the hypercommons democratically.
The editorial essay underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive ethical discussion on the role of GenAI in academic authorship. As GenAI technologies continue to evolve, the academic community must grapple with the implications for moral agency, accountability, and the very nature of scholarly production. The Journal of Business Ethics aims to be a forum for this critical discussion, exploring ways to navigate the ethical crossroads presented by GenAI.
To delve deeper into this thought-provoking discussion, the full essay is available here.