Which Contributions Deserve Credit? Perceptions of Attribution in Human-AI Co-Creation

AI systems powered by large language models can act as capable assistants for writing and copy editing. In these tasks, the AI system acts as a co-creative partner, making novel contributions to an artifact-under-creation alongside its human partner(s). One question that arises in these scenarios is the extent to which AI should be credited for its contributions. We examined knowledge workers' views of attribution across a variety of contribution types, contribution amounts, and initiative through a scenario-based survey study (N=155). Compared to a human partner, we observed a consistent pattern in which AI was assigned less credit for equivalent contributions. Respondents largely felt that disclosing AI involvement was important, especially for works shared with others, but also for works only visible to themselves. Our results motivate the need for new standards for crediting AI contributions to co-created work.