Generative AI: Opportunities, Risks, and Responsibilities for Oral Sciences

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the capability to generate new content-including text, code, imagery, video, and speech-based on human prompts and is entering dental and oral research. By retrieving, analyzing, summarizing, and contextualizing vast datasets, generative AI offers substantial potential to enhance scientific workflows. It can improve documentation, communication, and reproducibility while saving time and accelerating discovery. However, its integration into research brings significant ethical, societal, and scientific challenges. Concerns include embedded data biases, automation bias, overreliance, and error propagation, all requiring critical human oversight. Furthermore, generative AI raises complex issues around plagiarism, fraud, attribution, and reproducibility, compounded by the potential for AI "hallucinations" or fabricated content. Addressing these concerns demands transparency, robust verification processes, ethical compliance, and clear documentation distinguishing synthetic from real-world data. Several scientific and regulatory bodies have published guidelines to support responsible AI use. Recommendations relevant to scientists in dental, oral, and craniofacial research include transparent disclosure of AI tools and methods, thorough verification of AI outputs, ethical oversight, and active monitoring. Scientists are urged to work collaboratively with stakeholders to enforce these principles and engage the public in the evolving discourse. The risk of misuse, particularly through fraudulent AI-generated publications, is growing. Paper mills exploiting generative AI can produce fabricated or manipulated articles, which may mislead the scientific community and distort evidence bases. Coordinated action, involving journals, institutions, and ethics bodies, is essential to combat these threats. As generative AI continues to evolve, adaptive and harmonized guidelines will be necessary to safeguard scientific integrity. Researchers, reviewers, and editors must play a proactive role in ensuring that AI serves to advance-not undermine-the quality and trustworthiness of dental and oral science.