Research Integrity & Ethical Standards
Standard Operating Procedures for Responsible Scholarly Communication
This document sets out the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for responsible scholarly communication on the Latent Scholar platform. Separate from our legal Terms of Use, it serves as the academic charter that governs the quality, transparency, and ethical conduct of all research included in our validated corpus.
The Synthesis Process: Articles on this platform are not written by humans, nor are they simple transformations of user-pasted text. They are synthesized by Large Language Models (LLMs) in response to structured research parameters (e.g., topic, discipline, description) submitted by contributors.
| The “Draft” Status | AI-generated text is treated as a zero-draft. It may contain plausible but incorrect statements, fabricated citations, or gaps in logic. |
| The Validation Requirement | The AI output is not the final scholarly record. An article becomes an authoritative scientific asset only after it has passed through our public review stream and received expert evaluation. |
Contributors do not write the prompts; they define the research intent. However, the ethical responsibility for that intent remains with the contributor.
Lawful & Ethical Intent: The “Topic” and “Short Description” fields must not request or imply content that is defamatory, hateful, sexually explicit, or that promotes illegal activity.
Research Integrity: Contributors may not use the “Optional Keywords” or “Short Description” fields to steer the AI toward generating disinformation, pseudoscience, or deliberately misleading narratives.
Proprietary Constraints: Do not include trade secrets, confidential data, or other non-public intellectual property in your idea description.
The review process is the core of our integrity model.
| Objective Rigor | Reviewers evaluate each article in light of the discipline and intended audience specified by the idea originator, focusing on accuracy, coherence, and scholarly relevance. |
| Correction over Rejection | The primary goal of the review is to benchmark the AI performance. Identifying and explaining errors is a constructive contribution to the dataset, not merely a critique of the text. |
Latent Scholar uses a transparent “Contributor-System-AI” attribution model to ensure credit is assigned correctly.
Credited as the suggester. Acknowledged for conceptualizing the topic and selecting the type of output, either by name or anonymously.
Latent Scholar is credited for “prompt engineering & curatorial protocol,” covering backend conversion of ideas into optimized LLM instructions.
The generated text is explicitly attributed to the specific LLM used (e.g., GPT, Gemini, Claude).
Reviewers are credited for validation and commentary, either by name or anonymously, based on their preference.
To preserve the neutrality of our corpus:
| Originators | Must disclose any financial or other material interest related to the topic they propose (e.g., suggesting a favorable article about a drug they manufactured). |
| Reviewers | Must decline to review any article for which they have a competing financial, professional, or personal interest. |
| No PII | The “Short Description” field must not contain personally identifiable information (PII) about real individuals (e.g., patient names, private addresses). |
| Theoretical Simulations | If your idea involves data analysis, describe the data conceptually or reference public, anonymized sources. Do not paste raw, private, or confidential datasets into any submission field. |
Latent Scholar LLC applies strict safeguards to discourage the generation of unethical content. We also recognize the stochastic nature of LLMs and the fact that we do not directly control the third-party models that generate text.
We do not allow the submission of ideas that propose or justify unethical experimentation on humans or animals (e.g., violations of the Nuremberg Code or established animal welfare standards).
If an AI model produces content that breaches these ethical standards despite our safeguards, Latent Scholar will act promptly to remediate. Users and reviewers should report such content via our Contact Us page. Following review, we reserve the right to unpublish any article deemed harmful, unethical, or legally non-compliant.
Content removal is subject to the procedures and rights set forth in our Terms of Use, including but not limited to Sections 3.2(e) and 3.7.
Latent Scholar reserves the right to moderate its corpus to preserve scientific integrity.
| Manipulation | Any attempt to “jailbreak” or circumvent our prompt engineering safeguards to generate harmful content will result in account suspension or termination. |
| Falsification | Deliberately submitting ideas intended to produce fabricated citations or otherwise pollute the scholarly record is treated as research misconduct. |
| Refutation | Articles shown to be wholly hallucinatory or harmful may be annotated, corrected, or retracted. In some cases, we may retain such content, clearly labeled, as case studies that illustrate AI limitations. In other cases, we may permanently remove the content from our database. |
Consequences for misconduct are governed by the suspension and termination provisions in our Terms of Use Section 5.2. The LLC reserves all rights and remedies set forth in the Terms of Use.
(a) Violations of these standards may result in:
- Content removal or annotation
- Rejection of pending submissions
- Temporary or permanent account suspension
- Public notice of retraction
- Reporting to relevant academic institutions or professional bodies
- Legal action where appropriate
(b) Enforcement decisions are made in Latent Scholar LLC’s sole discretion and are final.
(c) Appeals: May be submitted to info@latentscholar.org within 30 days of an enforcement action. We will review appeals in good faith but are not obligated to reverse decisions.
Latent Scholar LLC does not endorse, warrant, or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any purpose of AI-generated content. The LLC is not liable for any claims, damages, or losses arising from reliance on such content. All liability limitations in our Terms of Use apply.
Questions about our ethical standards?
Contact us at info@latentscholar.org