Who Owns YOUR Ideas & Hard Work: Cureus Believes YOU do! 

In this new era of AI bots, Silicon Valley’s Big Bad Tech are all getting super rich training their large language models (LLMs) by using the published work of real creators like you. By arguing that the intent of existing Creative Commons licenses are ambiguous, the AI industry is vacuuming up human ingenuity claiming this to be “fair use” of open access content. Cureus is hereby the first medical journal to say, NO! Your ideas are YOUR ideas, so if the AI industry wants to use YOUR published ideas, they must now ask for YOUR permission.

Protecting Human Intelligence in an Age of Algorithms 

At Cureus, we believe in the radical notion that authors still matter. That human beings (not machines) are the true drivers of knowledge, insight, and progress. We believe authorship is sacred. And today, we’re making a declaration to instill these values into the fabric of our existence.

New AI Restrictions in Our Terms & Conditions

We’ve updated our Terms & Conditions to explicitly restrict the use of Cureus content by artificial intelligence systems, including use for training, data mining, or generating derivative works. These Use Restrictions are designed to protect both the originality of your work as an author and the sanctity of human thought.

“In connection with your Use of the Site Content, you must:…not use the Site Content in combination with artificial intelligence, including, without limitation, to train an algorithm, machine learning tool, or other artificial intelligence technology; to conduct data mining; or to generate any output or derivative work based on Site Content.”

This is not merely a legal update. It’s a bold affirmation of our author-first mission.
A global call to respect the irreplaceable creativity of the human mind.

Why This Matters

We are the first medical journal to take this stand. Why? Because the publishing world is slipping toward a dangerous precipice, where ease trumps integrity and derivatives outnumber originals. Cureus refuses to be complicit.

We are not anti-technology. We are pro-human.
We are not anti-progress. We are pro-author.

In an age where AI can mimic the form of knowledge without understanding its meaning, Cureus believes in preserving the thoughts of real people — clinicians, scientists, educators, and thinkers, whose lived experiences, training, and personal insights and discoveries cannot be replicated by machines.

This isn’t just policy. It’s a principle.

Authorship is a Human Right

From the beginning, Cureus was designed to democratize medical publishing, not digitize it into oblivion. Our platform exists to elevate your voice, not dilute it in an algorithm’s endless remix.

As AI grows more powerful, so too must our resolve to protect what is authentically human.
Our authors and their ideas are not training data.

This is about preserving history. About honoring great thinkers, not absorbing their genius into a machine's predictive soup. It’s about safeguarding knowledge as a living, human legacy.

We invite other journals and institutions to follow our lead.
To advocate for authors.
To defend originality.
To be human-first.

We are Cureus. And we’re here to protect what matters most — your voice.