To Find the “Rotten Apple” – Information Ethical Requirements for the Information Literacy of Autonomous Writing Engines

Since the availability of ChatGPT, there has been a heated debate about what conclusions should be drawn from this automated text generation. This paper: There is an ethical claim that the authors vouch for the quality of their sources. The realization of this claim is tied to explicit competence, in this case, information literacy. However, when using autonomous writing programs, this competence is shared: The user leaves the source responsibility to the AI. This delegation can only succeed when the machine itself has information competence. This point has ethical implications for the use and development of such technology. If the adage “one bad apple spoils the whole barrel” is true, then the ability to distinguish good apples from bad is a core information literacy skill. This paper discusses what information ethics requirements must be placed on the programming and use of autonomous writing programs.