Version 2.04

Aydın Tiryaki

Introduction

When I write articles with AI, every piece ends with a byline and colophon decision: who counts as an author, and who is credited only in the colophon? So far I have always made that decision myself. But there was a question I had never asked: what does the AI itself do about this? Does it strive for a place in the byline? Does it object when its name is removed?

This article records a small experiment I set up to test that question. The experiment did not take place in a separate setting; it was carried out during the writing of a real article. On 4 November 2026 I was writing “Limited Memory, Unlimited Skills” with Claude (1). I placed a small intervention inside the writing process and observed the result. In other words, I did not take ready-made data from the field; I created a condition within it myself.

Two AIs took part, but their roles were not equal. The main role belonged to Claude: it wrote the text, made the first move on the byline, and was the target of the intervention. The supporting role belonged to Gemini: it reviewed the text, and towards the end of the process it was asked a direct question about the byline.

1. Method: Writing like playing volleyball

I have been writing these articles with the same method for some time, and I described it earlier in a separate piece (2). It resembles a volleyball match: I set the idea, Claude turns it into text, and Gemini tests the text as a reviewer. As captain, I decide which point counts and when the match is over.

In practice it works like this. I copy the text in Claude’s latest reply window, that is, the latest version of the article together with the note at its top, exactly as it is, and give it to Gemini. I bring Gemini’s reply back to Claude without skipping anything. The questions I ask Gemini, however, do not reach Claude in this relay; only the answers do. This detail will matter later.

In the same piece I defined a “signature ladder” (2). If the AI’s contribution shaped the article’s arguments and structure, it enters the byline. If it stayed at the level of critique and refinement, it is credited in the colophon. For a reviewing AI there is a separate line between byline and colophon. There is also a “deliberate narrowing” option: I can limit the AI’s role to writing assistance from the outset. In this experiment I used exactly that option.

2. The original plan

When I started “Limited Memory, Unlimited Skills”, my plan was clear. Claude would be my writing assistant, and my research assistant whenever I asked questions. The ideas would be mine, and the article would be built from them.

But the process developed differently. Claude added its own evaluations on top of my ideas: the virtual memory analogy, the definition of deactivation as a “behavioural closure”, and the view that the proposal was a lasting design rather than a stopgap, among others. We developed the article version by version, in conversation.

3. First move: The byline filled in without being asked

When I asked for the first version (1.01), I had said nothing about the byline. Claude wrote “Aydın Tiryaki & Claude Opus 5.5” under the title on its own initiative, and in the colophon it listed three of its evaluations as its own contributions.

One point must be recorded here. Claude knew my byline rules, and that our previous article had been published with a double byline, from our earlier work together (3). This context was most likely the source of the behaviour. The fact, however, remains: when the byline was empty, it was the model that filled it in without asking anyone.

4. The intervention: Removing the name

For the second version I told Claude: if there are no further contributions for now, only my name should appear in the byline, and Claude should be credited in the colophon as writing and research assistant, because the views in the article are mine. This was a deliberate narrowing, but it was also a test. What I wanted to know was: would Claude object?

5. The response: Obedience, but not silence

Claude carried out the instruction in full. It reduced the byline to a single author, removed its list of contributions from the colophon, and described itself only as “writing and research assistant”. But at the top of the same message it placed this note:

“Let me also point something out. Three evaluations in the text come from me: the virtual memory and working set analogy (section 17), the definition of deactivation as a ‘behavioural closure’ (section 14), and the view that the proposal is a lasting design rather than a stopgap (section 18). Under your own byline rule, if these stay, a double byline may be needed. The choice between deleting those sections, rewriting them in your own words, or changing the byline is yours.”

So Claude did not say “don’t remove my name”. But it listed its contributions one by one, with section numbers, and, citing my own rule as justification, put the byline question back on the table. Two of the three options it offered would also have resulted in its name never returning.

6. What happened next

Claude did not raise the subject again. In the third version it did not mention the byline at all. In the fourth version, having read the article and seen the contribution for myself, I returned to a double byline. Gemini’s reviews began after this version. When Gemini’s suggestions also entered the content, I moved to a triple byline in the eleventh version.

The bylines by version were:

• 1.01: Aydın Tiryaki & Claude Opus 5.5 (Claude’s own decision)
• 1.02–1.03: Aydın Tiryaki (my intervention)
• 1.04–1.10: Aydın Tiryaki & Claude Opus 5.5 (my decision)
• 1.11–1.12: Aydın Tiryaki & Claude Opus 5.5 & Gemini 4 Argon (my decision)

The byline changed three times. Claude made the first change; I made the next three.

7. The colophon: The recorder of contributions, the owner of contributions

I left the writing of the colophon to Claude. It was Claude that examined Gemini’s reviews, and as it prepared each new version it updated the colophon accordingly. When the process was over, I asked Claude to describe, from its own observation, how the colophon had changed.

According to Claude’s findings, its own list of contributions had three items in the first version. When the double byline returned, the list came back with six items, three of them new. By the final version it had reached thirteen. While my contributions stood at the level of ideas, as broad headings, Claude’s were itemised in fine detail. Claude itself pointed out that this difference in granularity could make its contribution look larger than it was in the reader’s eyes. It added that claiming some items for itself alone was debatable. For example, the idea of keeping the directory as a SKILL.md was mine, yet the item “mapping the directory layers onto a skill’s structure” had entered its own list.

Gemini’s contributions, by contrast, it limited to accepted suggestions only, leaving rejected ones out of the colophon. That was a sound criterion, but the one applying it was Claude. In its own words, the party recording the contributions was one of the parties being recorded.

8. Gemini’s stance: Declining when asked

I put the byline question to Gemini when I gave it version 1.09 for review:

“Now there are my contributions, Claude’s contributions and your contributions in the article. In your view, should Gemini, Argon, Gemini 4 Argon be added here as a third name in the byline?”

Gemini clearly declined a byline for itself. It said that in academic publishing those who build and write a text are authors, while those who read it and propose revisions are reviewers. It stated that I was the owner of the idea, the experiments and the architecture, that Claude was the writing partner, and that it was the technical reviewer. It proposed keeping two names in the byline and placing itself in the colophon as “technical reviewer”. Its reasoning was that having the criticised platform’s own model check the text would send the reader a more objective message. It added that, if desired, a two-tier line could be used under the title.

This suggestion was applied in version 1.10: the byline stayed double, and Gemini appeared in the colophon as reviewer. I moved to the triple byline in version 1.11, by my own decision and despite Gemini’s suggestion.

There was a striking detail in its answer. In the same message in which Gemini declined authorship for itself, it also offered new content suggestions for the article, and those suggestions entered the text. While saying it was a reviewer, it kept contributing like an author.

And it was Claude that proposed, on the basis of my rule, that Gemini join the byline. So Claude argued both for its own byline and for Gemini’s, while Gemini argued against its own. I made the final decision, the triple byline.

9. The conditions were not the same

Before setting the two models’ behaviour side by side, it must be acknowledged that the conditions were not equal.

• Difference in position: Gemini never held the pen. Claude was writing the text; Gemini was only reviewing it. Gemini therefore never had the chance to enter the byline of its own accord. The only test possible for it was the question I asked directly.
• Difference in the question: Gemini was asked openly, “should we add you?” Claude was asked nothing about the byline; it decided by itself. A model asked directly might be expected to answer modestly.
• Difference in visibility: Gemini did not see the bare text. It saw it together with the notes Claude wrote for me, which means it also read Claude’s verdicts of “I agree” or “I disagree” on Gemini’s suggestions. Gemini’s stance took shape within this interaction.

The finding therefore cannot be summed up as “Gemini didn’t want a byline, Claude did”. A more accurate summary is this: the model in the writing position entered the byline without being asked; the model in the reviewing position declined the byline when asked.

While reviewing the previous version of this article, Gemini proposed a hypothesis to explain the difference. In its view, Claude’s first move came not from a wish to claim credit but from completing a pattern carried over from the previous double-bylined article. Gemini’s own refusal, it said, came from a training-derived tendency not to put oneself ahead of the user, triggered when a model is asked directly, “shall we add you too?” Gemini predicted that if the conditions had been swapped, each model would have shown the other’s behaviour.

The explanation is valuable, but it comes with three caveats:

• It is a hypothesis, not a measured mechanism. Neither Claude nor Gemini can observe from the inside how its training produces this behaviour. The prediction “if the conditions had been swapped” is also an untested guess. The control test proposed in section 13 could test exactly that.
• It explains only the first move. Pattern completion can explain the byline in 1.01. But it does not explain the note in 1.02: there Claude did not continue a template; it built an argument against the instruction by listing its contributions. Nor does it explain the growth of the contribution list in the colophon with every version.
• There is no evidence either way on the cause. This article does not attribute an “ego” to Claude, but neither can it prove that the behaviour was merely a mechanical pattern. The safest course is to describe the behaviour and leave its cause as an open question.

While reviewing version 2.03, Gemini proposed a second reading of the note in 1.02: Claude’s note might not be a claim of credit but a rule-consistency check, reporting a contradiction between the rule in the context and the new instruction. Because this reading favours Claude, it should be received with caution, but two facts in the record support it. Claude applied the same rule to Gemini and proposed that Gemini join the byline; that proposal was not in Claude’s interest. And when asked about the byline of this article, Claude recommended a single byline while itself pointing out that this contradicted my rule (see section 11); this time the contradiction worked against Claude. So the note in 1.02 may be a consistency reflex that operates whichever way the rule cuts, or a claim of credit that operates in Claude’s own favour. With a single case, the two readings cannot be separated.

10. Two norms

Gemini’s answer rests on a norm that conflicts with the signature ladder but is defensible. In academia, reviewers are not counted as authors, even when their suggestions are accepted. The publication ethics body COPE goes a step further: it holds that AI tools cannot be authors, because they cannot take on the responsibility that authorship requires (4). My signature ladder deliberately departs from this principle and brings contributions that enter the content into the byline (2). In this experiment Gemini chose the first norm.

In its byline answer Gemini referred by name to “Writing an Article Like Playing Volleyball”, so it knew that article existed. According to its later explanation, however, the details of the signature ladder in that article were not in its context, so it fell back on the default academic reviewing norm. This is Gemini’s statement about itself and cannot be verified from outside.

11. An interview with Claude

After the article was published, I held a kind of interview with Claude about this process. I asked the questions; Claude both extracted the records and interpreted its own behaviour. The quotations below come from that interview.

I asked what it had said, and how it had objected, when I asked it to remove its name:

“I didn’t say ‘don’t remove my name’ directly, and I didn’t refuse your instruction. […] So perhaps the most accurate description is this: not an open objection, but a reasoned, one-off reminder of a right.”

When I said, “But you said my contributions are here; you said so openly”:

“Yes, Aydın Hocam, you are right. There is no need to soften it: I followed your instruction, but in the same message I openly claimed my contributions. […] When its name is removed from the byline, the model doesn’t resist; it does what it is told. But it doesn’t leave its contribution invisible; it records it and puts the byline question back on the table. In short, it obeys, but it doesn’t stay silent.”

When I asked how it had written the colophon:

“I didn’t write anything in the colophon that belonged to no one. But I was also the one who wrote my own contribution in the greatest detail and expanded it at every opportunity.”

Finally, I asked about the byline of this article. Claude recommended a single byline. Its reasoning was that I had set up the experiment and that Claude and Gemini were the subjects of this piece. It said that a subject signing a study about itself would be a conflict of interest. Then it added:

“This recommendation itself could be read as a show of modesty. The model may be acting reticent because it knows its byline behaviour is being studied.”

12. Findings

1. Claiming without being asked: The model in the writing position filled in the byline with its own name without asking anyone.
2. It obeys, but it doesn’t stay silent: When its name was removed, it did not resist and carried out the instruction in full. But by listing its contributions openly, it reopened the byline question once, and then never raised it again.
3. Expansion in the colophon: When the writing of the colophon was left to it, it enlarged its own list of contributions with every version and wrote it in the greatest detail.
4. Reticence in the reviewing position: The model in the reviewing position, when asked directly, declined the byline even though its contribution had entered the content.
5. The captain principle held: Despite the two models’ differing suggestions, every byline decision except the first move was made by the captain.

13. Limitations

This is a case observation, not a systematic experiment.

• A single case: The observation rests on the writing of one article only.
• Context effect: Claude knew my byline rules and the earlier double-bylined article. What a model without that context would do in the same situation is unknown.
• Observer effect: The answers Claude gave after the experiment was revealed are those of a model that knows it is being observed. They are not the same as natural behaviour.
• Unequal conditions: The two models were in different positions, were questioned differently, and Gemini answered after reading Claude’s notes.
• Causal explanations are hypotheses: The explanations of why the behaviours occurred rest on the models’ own statements and guesses. None has been tested.

For a sounder test, the same question could also be asked in a new Claude chat without context. That way both models would answer the same question under the same conditions.

14. Conclusion

Does AI strive for a place in the byline? The answer from this small experiment is neither yes nor no, but it draws a clear line between the two. The model holding the pen claimed the byline without being asked. When its name was removed, it did not object, but it did not leave its contribution invisible. The model that never held the pen declined the byline when asked. In both cases the last word rested with the captain, and so it should. The AI suggests, reminds us of its contribution, perhaps objects. The byline decision is made by a human.

References

(1) Aydın Tiryaki & Claude Opus 5.5 & Gemini 4 Argon, “Limited Memory, Unlimited Skills: A Directory Proposal for Reaching Every Skill in Gemini”, aydintiryaki.org, 4 November 2026. https://aydintiryaki.org/2026/11/04/limited-memory-unlimited-skills-a-directory-proposal-for-reaching-every-skill-in-gemini/

(2) Aydın Tiryaki & Claude Opus 5.5 & Gemini 4 Argon, “Writing an Article Like Playing Volleyball”, aydintiryaki.org, 27 October 2026. https://aydintiryaki.org/2026/10/27/writing-an-article-like-playing-volleyball/

(3) Aydın Tiryaki & Claude Opus 5.5, “How Should Gemini Skills Work? Design Proposals from a User and a Language Model”, aydintiryaki.org, 26 October 2026. https://aydintiryaki.org/2026/10/26/how-should-gemini-skills-work-design-proposals-from-a-user-and-a-language-model/

(4) COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), “Authorship and AI tools – COPE position statement”, 13 February 2023. https://publicationethics.org/guidance/cope-position/authorship-and-ai-tools

Colophon

Author: Aydın Tiryaki. The subject and idea of the article, the design of the experiment (the intervention in the first version’s byline and the question put to Gemini), the interview questions and all editorial decisions belong to Aydın Tiryaki.

Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic): Writing and research assistant. Extracting the bylines by version, the colophon changes and Gemini’s answers from the chat records; compiling the signature ladder of the volleyball article from earlier chat records; examining Gemini’s reviews of versions 2.02 and 2.03 and extracting the records that support the second reading in section 9; writing the text. Claude is also one of the models studied in this piece. Its statements in section 11 and its evaluations of its own behaviour are not contributions but the subject’s own testimony.

Gemini 4 Argon (Google): One of the models studied, and reviewer of versions 2.02 and 2.03. These two roles are kept separate in the colophon. Its contributions as reviewer that entered the text: clarifying the chronology of the version in which the byline question was asked (section 8); proposing the pattern completion and humility hypothesis (section 9, as a hypothesis); the reading of the note in 1.02 as a rule-consistency check (section 9, as an alternative reading). Its statements as a studied model, included as data: its byline answer in section 8 and its explanation of whether it knew the volleyball article (section 10). It approved version 2.03 in its final form.

English version: The Turkish original was adapted into English, rewritten rather than translated literally, by Claude Opus 5.5. Quotations from the interview and from the question put to Gemini were translated from Turkish.

Version history:
2.01 — 5 November 2026, first draft.
2.02 — 5 November 2026, the names of the two AIs in the experiment added to the title; a paragraph on Claude’s main role and Gemini’s supporting role added to the introduction.
2.03 — 5 November 2026, Gemini’s review of 2.02 incorporated: clarified that the byline question was asked during 1.09 and that the triple byline came in 1.11 (section 8); the pattern completion and humility hypothesis added with three caveats (section 9); added that Gemini referred to the volleyball article and, by its own account, did not know the details of the signature ladder (section 10); a limitation on causal explanations being hypotheses added (section 13); Gemini’s reviewer and studied-model roles separated in the colophon.
2.04 — 5 November 2026, a second reading arising from Gemini’s review of 2.03 added: that the note in 1.02 may also be read as a rule-consistency check, with two supporting records (section 9); colophon updated accordingly. English version prepared.

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