Publishing corporation Wiley has updated its pages for Philosophy and Public Affairs, now that its editors have all resigned, and has announced it is seeking new co-editors-in-chief for the journal.

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Wiley states that applications for the position should include, among other things, “a vision statement including a short assessment of how you see the strengths and weaknesses of the journal, including your vision for its future development.”

It then adds:

You’re welcome to utilise AI platforms for creating your vision statement, but incorporating your own ideas can provide a more advantageous and authentic reflection of your vision and values.

What’s more absurd about this? An academic publisher admitting it will accept AI-written application materials, or an academic publisher thinking it has to advise academics to incorporate their “own ideas” into their own “vision statements”? (I know some will be tempted to say “it’s the request for something called a ‘vision statement,'” in the first place, but that ship has sailed, my friends.)

It remains to be seen whether the academic community will, as it did with the Journal of Political Philosophy, collectively issue a call to not cooperate with Wiley. Perhaps it because Wiley is preparing for that possibility—and the likelihood that their pickings for a new editorial team will be slim to none—that they’re lowering the bar in this way. And perhaps that Wiley included something like this in their application instructions is evidence of the mentality that contributed to the problem they’re now trying to solve.

(via Jay Wallace)