Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) lacks the ability for critical thinking and original assessment, which may result in incorrect, incomplete, and biased conclusions. As a non-legal entity, it cannot assert the presence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright or license agreements. The policy regarding using GenAI in submission and review of manuscripts is as follows.
1. GenAI cannot assume the corresponding responsibility of an author, and this journal does not accept GenAI, its products or teams listed as authors.
2. GenAI cannot be used to write entire papers or important parts of papers, such as methods, results, and interpretation and analysis of results. All content falling within the realm of scientific contribution or intellectual work should be completed by humans. If the main content of a paper is completed by GenAI, the editorial office will regard the case as academic misconduct.
3. If GenAI is used in the composition of papers, authors must disclose in detail how GenAI is used in the methods section. Authors are fully responsible for the content produced by GenAI tools, and are thus liable for any breaches of publication ethics or infringement.
4. GenAI is prohibited to assist manuscript evaluation or decision-making process in the editorial office. It must be human editors who are responsible for the paper review, decision-making, and communication with authors. To avoid risks of infringement, privacy breach, and confidential breach, reviewers and editors are not allowed to upload manuscripts and supplementary materials to publicly available GenAI platforms during the paper review and editing process.
5. If, upon investigation, the editorial office determines that authors have violated GenAI usage policies in their scientific writing, the manuscript will be rejected or retracted. In severe cases, the journal will reject submission from the authors within two years. If reviewers violate GenAI policies during the review process, which results in information leakage or infringement, they will be prohibited from participating in review work and shall bear consequent responsibilities.