Authorial Integrity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Scientific Autobiography

Writing a scientific autobiography is challenging due to the many factors influencing an academic career, including personal experiences, the era of one's career, research interests, available research tools, institutional environment, societal priorities, and mentorship. Despite changing contexts, certain obligations remain constant: scholars have an obligation to prioritize scientific and personal integrity above the pursuit of individual success, and they must ethically use research tools, including information technology search processes and writing technologies, as part of their scientific processes. The first obligation is built on personal integrity, which in turn characterizes how the second is implemented. My career spanned the last quarter of the 20th century through the first quarter of the 21st century. During this period, there were significant advancements in research methodologies, including the capability of internet search technologies to access scientific databases and desktop writing and referencing software. These advances pale in comparison to the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence large language models (AI LLMs) over the last 5 years, where information retrieval and writing tools have transformed how we access and use information - potentially placing our personal and authorial integrity at risk. Given this rapid transformation, my autobiography's objectives are: 1) to share my developmental perspectives on personal and authorial integrity and examine the impact of early experiences where perceived plagiarism helped me define those principles; 2) to review professional guidelines concerning research integrity and policy recommendations for AI LLMs; 3) to discuss changes in my scholarly content resulting from evolving search strategies, writing tools, and journal growth; and 4) by using examples of AI-generated and AI-assisted writing samples, to address the influence of AI LLMs on authorial integrity, including practical risks, opportunities, and current recommended strategies for managing AI LLMs in scholarly writing. By sharing my perspectives, I hope to provide guidance for those pursuing scholarly careers that ensures their authorial integrity.