C&EN is using AI—very carefully

“What are you all doing about artificial intelligence?” It’s a question C&EN staffers get a lot. Journalism as a profession was already reeling with the collapse of business models based on robust demand for print. And then along came a generative AI with tools that can crank out grammatical, plausible text on any subject on demand. Generative AI’s capacity to change the practice of chemistry is an opportunity and a concern. This week’s cover story by C&EN reporter Alex Scott takes a wider look at the implications. In both journalism and research, a central debate is whether AI will enhance our professional output or make our jobs redundant. As a start to answering that question—for ourselves and for our readers—C&EN published a statement about how we intend to approach AI , which you can view at cenm.ag/cenaiethics . The AI craze was kicked off by services such as ChatGPT and