AI and the Problem of Authorship in Academic Writing
On an interdisciplinary workshop at Bielefeld University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), scientists from different academic fields, like computer science, philosophy, education research, and sociology shared their expertise, creating a productive dialogue on questions of the autonomy of learners, teachers, researchers, and higher education institutions in the age of artificial intelligence.
In this context, Florian Muhle gave an input on the question of academic authorship in times of AI. He emphasized that authorship is still important, because in his eyes its function is to ensure the credibility of written word and the associated responsibility for it. Thus, Muhle claims that humans who use AI for text production still need to acknowledge their authorship. In times of AI, this means that they have the responsibility to understand how algorithms work, to assess the sources of the AI system’s textual output, and to evaluate and improve its results.