Abstract:

In September 2025, East China Normal University launched the world’s first large-scale social experiment of “AI as the First Author”. Using a quasi-field experimental method, it carried out an essay-soliciting activity on “AI-Driven Educational Research Paper Writing”, requiring AI to be the first author and humans to play the roles of collaborators and reviewers. Over a period of half a year, 724 valid submissions were received from both domestic and international sources. Based on this, the university explored the fifth paradigm of AI-empowered research in philosophy and social sciences, academic ethical norms, and the path to constructing an independent knowledge system in education. The experiment went through eight stages: intervention design, response monitoring, expert seminars, data collection, AI-based manuscript review, human-machine consistency testing, data analysis, and result publication. A mixed-research method was adopted to reveal the core findings. AI has significant advantages in aspects such as inspiration generation, information processing, and text polishing, but it has limitations such as fictional literature, logical hollowness, insufficient innovation, and ethical risks; efficient AI application can significantly enhance academic contributions, forming six innovative patterns and five human-AI collaboration models; AI-based manuscript review is reliable and complementary to the evaluation by human experts, and there are obvious differences in the research tastes of different large language models; there is a significant “AI generation gap” in the academic community, with the younger generation being more adaptable to human-AI collaboration, and AI has, to some extent, promoted intellectual equality. The research proposed that in the future, efforts should be made to promote the transformation of research paradigms, reform of evaluation systems, development of research-specific AI agents, reconstruction of educational models, and innovation of diploma certification. Findings provide empirical support and practical inspiration for academic innovation and educational transformation in the intelligent era.

Key words: AI as the first author, social experiment, educational research, human-AI collaboration, research paradigm, academic ethics, AI-based paper review, intellectual equity