Artificial intelligence and the death of the academic author

2025/07/22 by Ken Masters · 1 voice · 1 citation
Medicine · #Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education

paper · doi:10.1080/0142159x.2025.2523463

openalex publication_date 2025/07/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/06

Abstract

In his essay 'The Death of the Author,' Roland Barthes describes the fiction author as a blender of cultural artifacts. This paper identifies parallels between that activity and the actions currently performed by Large Language Models (LLMs). It then goes further to argue that, in Health Professions Education academia (indeed, all academia), authorship is a mechanical role ideally suited to LLMs, and should be given to LLMs, freeing academic researchers to focus on the actual creative and contributive portion of any work: the research.

Citations

• On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots
• Academ-AI: documenting the undisclosed use of generative artificial intelligence in academic publishing

Cited by

• When and how to disclose AI use in academic publishing: AMEE Guide No.192

Discussions

• You might like to see my just-published paper on AI and the Death of the Academic Author. doi.org/10.1080/0142... [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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