There are countless pieces circulating these days about whether and how to use Artificial Intelligence for academic writing. Here are two recent examples; there are many more.
Regardless of what you think about these pieces, I find it interesting that they pose the problem from the author’s perspective. But writing is a form of communication: there is a sender and a receiver, an author and (at least one) reader. Allison Stranger’s “Who Cares Whether Academics Use AI to Write?” clearly imposes a restriction on how readers should read: we should judge analytical writing by its quality, not its source. I think this is a mistake, and misunderstands the very nature of academic writing.
I do not use AI for academic writing, but I still have a position on others’ use of AI for academic writing, because I am also a reader. To clarify my thinking and articulate my own position, I have written a short note explaining my policy on AI use in academic writing, but posing the problem from a reader’s perspective. Hence the title: Academic Writing and AI: A Reader’s Policy (pdf).
This short note is addressed to writers, but from the perspective of a reader, on the hypothesis that anyone who takes academic writing seriously will take into account what a reader expects. The note summarizes my own policy on AI-generated prose for academic writing, and others may hold different views—especially for those working outside of the human sciences. But I suspect that my views are widely held, even if they have not yet been articulated this way.
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