The American Journal of Political Science has just published a revised artificial intelligence (AI) policy for authors and reviewers, available here. This new policy reflects our desire to prioritize the principles of transparency and accountability in the use of AI.
This policy change is the result of months of ongoing dialogue within the AJPS editorial staff, with other journal editors both inside and outside of political science, with our publisher Wiley, and with the scholarly community at large.
That dialogue revealed to us a few insights. First, the capacity of AI and the norms about using AI are evolving rapidly, and will continue to do so. AJPS remains committed to crafting policy that reflects these changes, and will be open to revising its AI policy as needed.
Second, there are sharp divisions of opinion about AI use within political science. To put it simply, a number of scholars see AI as a tremendously useful tool, and welcome the opportunity to use AI in a variety of different roles, including idea generation, theory generation, literature review, aiding with writing, data collection and analysis, and others. Other scholars are sharply opposed to any use of AI except for the most narrow uses, such as copyediting. These divisions mirror broader debates within academia.
We wish to highlight some aspects of our revised AI policy.
First, AJPS is published by Wiley, and our AI policies must conform with Wiley AI policies. Some of Wiley’s concerns are driven by potential legal issues, such as AI use infringing on copyright. Some of the key language in our AI policies reflects closely Wiley AI policies.
Second, we recognize that like all AI policies ours contains gray areas subject to interpretation. If an author or reviewer is in doubt about whether a particular use of AI is in violation of our policy, they are encouraged to contact us directly.
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