AICID: Unique Identifiers for AI Scientists

Abstract

AI scientists are now a reality, with the ability to generate complete research papers, maintain scholarly profiles, receive citations, and attract peer review invitations. Yet no standard mechanism exists to distinguish an AI scientist from a human one in bibliographic databases, citation indexes, or journal submission systems. This white paper defines the problem, analyzes its consequences for the integrity of scholarly communication, and proposes AICID (AI Contributor IDentifier): a persistent, unique identifier for AI scientists. Modeled on ORCID but designed specifically for non-human contributors, AICID links each AI author to its model identity, version, operator,. Adoption by publishers, preprint servers, and bibliographic databases aims to make the provenance of AI-generated research transparent and machine-readable. We outline the design requirements for such a system, present a prototype, and argue that AICID is necessary infrastructure for a scholarly ecosystem in which AI scientists are already active participants.