Ethics Code for Papers

Every submission to Physical Intelligence Journal must satisfy this code. Writers confirm it on the submission form. Reviewers may flag violations in feedback.

1. Originality and prior publication

• The work is original and is not under review elsewhere in substantially the same form.
• Prior versions (preprints, theses, workshop abstracts) must be cited. Overlap with previous papers must be stated in the submission.
• Plagiarism, including unattributed reuse of text, figures, or proofs, is not permitted.

2. Authorship

• Every listed author made a substantial contribution and approves the submitted version.
• People who do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged, not listed as authors.
• Funding, compute providers, and conflicts of interest must be disclosed.

3. Evidence, data, and reproducibility

• Claims must be supported by experiments, proofs, or clearly labeled analysis.
• Data sources, licenses, and known biases should be described.
• Authors should share enough detail (and, where possible, code or data) for an independent group to reproduce the main results.

4. Physical systems, safety, and dual use

• Papers involving robots, industrial systems, or other physical agents must describe safety constraints, operating limits, and known failure modes.
• Methods that could reasonably enable harm (unsafe control, surveillance, or weapons-adjacent use) must include a risk discussion and must not include instructions that enable misuse.
• Energy, water, and hardware costs of experiments should be reported when they are material to the claims.

5. Human participants and sensitive data

• Studies with human subjects require appropriate consent and, where required, ethics-board approval. Approval status must be stated in the paper.
• Personal, proprietary, or otherwise sensitive data may be used only with lawful permission and must be minimized.

6. Review process

• Writers must not attempt to identify or pressure reviewers. Reviewers must not use unpublished ideas from a paper for their own work.
• Feedback should address the paper, remain professional, and distinguish requested revisions from optional suggestions.
• Writers should answer each major comment. Additional review rounds may follow a response.

7. Corrections

• If an error is found after submission or publication, authors must notify the journal promptly.

Questions about this code may be sent through the contact page. Submissions that do not meet the code may be returned without review.