These guidelines address the use of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI), including large language models (LLMs), by authors and peer reviewers of our books. Journal authors should reference the individual journal’s AI guidelines.

Authorship. The University of Chicago Press takes a fundamentally humanistic view of authorship. We work with scholars and other writers to develop their own arguments, narratives, and voices, and we publish them for readers who trust that the content of a book is ultimately the author’s work. Accordingly, we prohibit authors from using AI tools to perform core authorial functions such as writing or rewriting text and generating arguments.

The Press recognizes that LLMs such as Claude and ChatGPT have legitimate uses for authors, such as assisting with online research and surface-level grammar and usage correction. However, the Press stands for the principle that authors must not take credit for writing that is not their own and that they are responsible for every aspect of their work, including its provenance.

The same principle extends to figures, tables, and similar visual elements included in a book: authors must be able to account for the analytical and interpretive choices such elements represent. They may not use Gen AI to fabricate or alter the content of illustrations. This includes but is not limited to redrawing maps and diagrams, upsizing image files, and adding or removing elements in a photograph or other documentary image. Using AI to render visualizations of the author’s own data, as in charts and graphs, is permitted but must be disclosed.

Disclosure and copyright.  Authors who use any Gen AI tool to assist their writing and/or produce figures and tables must disclose this to their acquisitions editor at submission. Because AI use must also be transparent to the reader, authors should disclose it within the book, typically in the acknowledgments and/or in endnotes/footnotes. Authors should be aware, however, that Gen AI can introduce ideas, imagery, or even language from other authors whose work was used to train the model. Disclosure alone does not discharge the author's responsibility to verify what AI has contributed, which is critical to the integrity of the work.

Disclosure also relates to copyright. We view copyright as vital to producing and sustaining knowledge, and to protecting authors’ interests. Because AI-generated content cannot be copyrighted in the United States, understanding the extent of its use in a work through a clear and comprehensive disclosure is critical to determining what has protection under copyright law and can be registered for copyright.

Peer Review.  In peer review, we require unassisted evaluations and expressly prohibit the use of AI tools in writing readers’ reports. Out of respect for the author’s intellectual property, peer reviewers should not copy any portion of a manuscript or a proposal, nor the reader’s report itself, into an AI tool, even one that promises not to retain data.

The AI landscape is evolving rapidly, and the Press will update these guidelines in response. We encourage authors to inform themselves about the practical and ethical risks of AI use and bring any questions to their editor.

Updated: 22 June 2026