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Ethical boundaries for using LLMs in research writing

Characterize the ethical requirements and boundaries governing the use of large language models to generate research manuscripts across bioethical, medical, and scientific domains.

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Background

The paper defends a conceptual claim about authorship but acknowledges that ethical questions about when and how LLMs should be used in research writing remain unsettled. Concerns raised include reliability, hallucinations, deskilling, mentorship loss, and broader societal impacts.

The authors explicitly flag that philosophical questions about the ethics of using LLMs remain, signaling the need for a systematic ethical framework tailored to research contexts.

References

While the present paper has focused on the authorial status of LLM users in research contexts, there remain philosophical questions about the authorial status of LLMs and the ethics of using them, as well as policy questions about how LLM use should be disclosed and how credit should be allocated for works thereby produced.

— Authorship Without Writing: Large Language Models and the Senior Author Analogy (2509.05390 - Hurshman et al., 5 Sep 2025) in Section V (Conclusion)