Rethinking the Ethics of AI in publishing

In publishing, where authority and trust are paramount, ethics can be both a guiding light and a minefield. Artificial Intelligence is reshaping how content is written and published, offering unprecedented efficiency but also raising ethical questions. This article explores how AI use in publishing can either support expert work or simulate it for influence or profit, often with damaging consequences. Ethical AI in support of human expertise includes:

• Use of AI to enhance the work of expert writers and publishers – AI can support skilled professionals by streamlining research, suggesting improvements, and accelerating drafting processes. This allows authors, editors, and publishers to produce higher-quality content more efficiently while retaining creative and authoritative control.

• Use of AI to fake expertise in writing and publishing for profit or influence – AI tools can generate polished, authoritative-sounding text, enabling individuals with little subject knowledge to publish materials with no means to verify accuracy, such as sites with a primary purpose of generating advertising or referral-related revenue. Inaccurate or misleading information undermines trust, distorts public discourse, and floods the market with low-quality or deceptive content while projecting authenticity.

Ethical AI use enhances productivity while ensuring that human expertise, critical judgment, and accountability remain central to the publishing process. The threshold for ethical AI use is clear to me: AI should assist experts, not create expertise, and the authors should be the subject matter experts and able to write the article independently, even if they choose to use AI to enhance productivity, clarity, and efficiency.

Ethical AI in Support of Human Expertise

When used ethically, AI can enhance the capabilities of skilled professionals without compromising integrity or authority. These are examples of how AI can respectfully support subject matter experts in the publishing process:

• AI-assisted outlining and structuring – Subject matter experts can use AI to organise ideas, generate summaries, or improve coherence, allowing them to focus on deep analysis and insights.

• Improved productivity without sacrificing integrity – AI helps streamline tasks like grammar correction, rewording, and formatting, reducing the time spent on administrative aspects of writing.

• Experts are responsible for factual accuracy – AI may provide suggestions, but final validation, critical thinking, and real-world expertise shape the published work.

• Refinement without compromising meaning – AI tools can enhance readability, correct errors, and optimise for audience engagement while preserving the writer’s original message and intent.

Where Ethical Boundaries Are Crossed

Unfortunately, AI is often used not to enhance genuine expertise, but to simulate it. This approach introduces risk, erodes trust, and undermines professional standards. Misuse includes bypassing real subject knowledge, misleading audiences, or generating content purely for financial gain, regardless of accuracy or credibility. AI should never be used to publish work that the author couldn’t understand, write, or explain without it.

• Mass-production of AI-generated content without subject knowledge – Using AI to generate numerous articles on specialized topics without subject-matter expertise leads to shallow and misleading content.

• Plagiarism and misinformation risks – AI can fabricate facts, misinterpret sources, or produce content that closely resembles existing material, raising ethical and legal concerns.

• Deception and false authority – Presenting AI-generated work as if written by an expert misleads readers and erodes trust in professional knowledge.

• Revenue-driven content farming – Some use AI to create high volumes of low-quality content, designed solely to rank on search engines and generate advertising revenue, regardless of accuracy or reader value.

• Automated publishing without human oversight – AI lacks ethical judgment, industry experience, and the ability to apply critical judgement in context, making unchecked AI-generated content prone to serious errors and misleading claims.

Ethical AI use supports expertise, boosts efficiency, and preserves credibility. In contrast, misuse leads to misinformation, low-quality content, and eroded trust in professional knowledge. AI is a powerful assistant but human expertise remains irreplaceable. As AI continues to evolve, so too must our standards for credibility, authorship, and trust. In a world where anyone can publish, the true measure of value lies not in how content is created, but in who stands behind it.