Policing Plagiarism of Ideas in Generative AI-Assisted Research Writing
Policing Plagiarism of Ideas in Generative AI-Assisted Research Writing
Publish Date: 2026-05-27 10:31:00
Source Domain: news.feinberg.northwestern.edu
Commentary: Onus is on scientists to use GenAI responsibly and ensure integrity, proper attribution
Mohammad Hosseini, MA, PhD, assistant professor of Preventive Medicine in the Division of Biostatistics and Informatics.
As more people — including scientists — use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in their writing, it’s becoming increasingly important to define what plagiarism looks like and how to police it.
A new commentary written by scientists at Northwestern University and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published in Nature Machine Intelligence weighs various options on how to define plagiarism in research manuscript writing in the ever-evolving world of GenAI.
The commentary argues plagiarism in manuscript writing harms the research environment by eroding trust among scientists, misrepresenting the origin and authenticity of scholarly work, and discouraging innovation and original inquiry.
Currently, most plagiarism policies address two types of plagiarism: plagiarism of original works, such as text or verbatim plagiarism, and plagiarism of ideas. Since GenAI tools can easily rephrase text, verbatim plagiarism is becoming less of an issue. But plagiarism of ideas, which is essentially a form of intellectual theft, is still an important concern because a GenAI tool may plagiarize underlying ideas without giving appropriate credit.
“It is fine and in fact helpful to use GenAI to increase the readability of writing and bounce ideas back and forth, but we know these tools frequently make mistakes of fact and accuracy and have enormous social and environmental impacts,” said corresponding author Mohammad Hosseini, MA, PhD, assistant professor of Preventive Medicine in the Division of Biostatistics and Informatics. “Checking AI output is still the simple and only way to ensure content is correct and reliable.”
Because plagiarism of ideas is difficult to detect and enforce, the commentary recommends that…
