Technology influences Open Science (OS) practices, because conducting science in transparent, accessible, and participatory ways requires tools and platforms for collaboration and sharing results. Due to this relationship, the characteristics of the employed technologies directly impact OS objectives. Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly used by researchers for tasks such as text refining, code generation/editing, reviewing literature, and data curation/analysis. Nevertheless, concerns about openness, transparency, and bias suggest that GenAI may benefit from greater engagement with OS. GenAI promises substantial efficiency gains but is currently fraught with limitations that could negatively impact core OS values, such as fairness, transparency, and integrity, and may harm various social actors. In this paper, we explore the possible positive and negative impacts of GenAI on OS. We use the taxonomy within the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science to systematically explore the intersection of GenAI and OS. We conclude that using GenAI could advance key OS objectives by broadening meaningful access to knowledge, enabling efficient use of infrastructure, improving engagement of societal actors, and enhancing dialogue among knowledge systems. However, due to GenAI’s limitations, it could also compromise the integrity, equity, reproducibility, and reliability of research. Hence, sufficient checks, validation, and critical assessments are essential when incorporating GenAI into research workflows.

In times of public crises, including the current COVID-19 pandemic, rapid dissemination of relevant scientific knowledge is of paramount importance. The duration of scholarly journals’ publication process is one of the main factors that may hinder quick delivery of new information. Following initiatives of medical journals to accelerate their publication process, this study assesses whether medical journals have managed to speed up their publication process for coronavirus-related articles. It studies the duration of 14 medical journals’ publication processes both during and prior to the current pandemic. Assessing 669 articles, the study concludes that medical journals have indeed strongly accelerated their publication process for coronavirus-related articles since the outbreak of the pandemic: The time between submission and publication has decreased on average by 49%. The largest decrease in number of days between submission and publication of articles was due to a decrease in time required for peer review. For articles not related to COVID-19, no acceleration of the publication process is found. While the acceleration of the publication process is laudable from the perspective of quick information dissemination, it also may raise concerns relating to the quality of the peer review process and of the resulting publications.