The ethics of using generative AI for qualitative data analysis

It is important to note that the text of this editorial is entirely written by humans without any Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) contribution or assistance. The Editor of the ISJ (Robert M. Davison) was contacted by one of the ISJ's Associate Editors (AE) (Marjolein van Offenbeek) who explained that the qualitative data analysis software ATLAS.ti was offering a free-of-charge analysis of research data if the researcher shared the same data with ATLAS.ti for training purposes for their GAI1 analysis tool. Marjolein believed that this spawned an ethical dilemma. Robert forwarded Marjolein's email to the ISJ's Senior Editors (SEs) and Associate Editors (AEs) and invited their comments. Nine of the SEs and AEs replied with feedback. We (the 11 contributing authors) then engaged in a couple of rounds of brainstorming before amalgamating the text in a shared document. This was initially created by Hameed Chughtai, but then commented on and edited by all the members of the team. The final version constitutes the shared opinion of the 11 members of the team, after several rounds of discussion. It is important to emphasise that the 11 authors have contrasting views about whether GAI should be used in qualitative data analysis, but we have reached broad agreement about the ethical issues associated with this use of GAI. Although many other topics related to the use of GAI in research could be discussed, for example, how GAI could be effectively used for qualitative analysis, we believe that ethical concerns overarch many of these other topics. Thus, in this editorial we exclusively focus on the ethics associated with using GAI for qualitative data analysis.