NeurIPS

This year, the NeurIPS 2026 Position Paper Track made the decision to require that all papers be substantially human-written, with AI used for only copy-editing or similar peripheral changes to the main text. While we recognize that thoughtful use of AI can result in productivity gains in research, the use of AI to write papers creates an acute risk for the peer review system. As Position Paper Track chairs, we took a conservative approach in policy this year as we believe in argumentative work like position papers, excessive use of AI in writing submitted papers has little benefit for the research community as a whole. AI-generated text is often slick, but can depart significantly from the authors’ original intention. In this case, submitting AI-generated text for peer review externalises the cost of verifying that work, imposing it on reviewers. Where AI-generated text is not itself incoherent or otherwise misguided, this raises questions about the appropriate attribution of credit.