In keeping with current best practices for open educational resources, this chapter discloses how generative artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the preparation of this book.
The mathematical content, structure, examples, exercises, proofs, and pedagogical decisions in this book are the work of Robert Hildebrand and the contributors named in the Acknowledgements and Sources and Attribution sections. AI was used as a writing-assistance and production tool, not as an author. The author has reviewed, verified, and edited all material that AI assisted with.
Generative AI assistants (primarily large language models) were used during preparation of this book for the following kinds of tasks:
Editing and copy-editing of expository prose for clarity, grammar, and consistency of voice.
Drafting boilerplate text such as license-compatibility summaries, attribution notices, accessibility metadata, and chapter-opening framing paragraphs, which the author then revised.
Generating draft alt-text descriptions for figures, which the author reviewed and edited for mathematical accuracy.
Formatting assistance with LaTeX: generating tikz skeletons, fixing macro definitions, restructuring tables, debugging compilation errors.
Code-comment and example-code drafting in Python and Excel. All numerical examples and code were independently verified by running the code and checking results.
License-audit assistance: cross-checking source license compatibility, drafting license notices, identifying figures or text passages that needed re-attribution or rewriting.
Proofreading and consistency checks across notation used in different chapters.
Generative AI was not used to:
Generate or fabricate mathematical claims, proofs, theorems, or numerical results that were not independently verified by the author.
Produce final figures used in the published book without review. All TikZ figures were authored by hand or generated by AI and then reviewed and corrected.
Generate exercise solutions without verification.
Make pedagogical decisions about scope, sequencing, or emphasis. Those decisions are the author’s.
To give readers and reviewers a concrete sense of how AI was engaged, the following are representative prompt patterns that were used during preparation:
“Rewrite this paragraph to improve clarity without changing its mathematical content.”
“Generate a one-sentence alt-text description of the following TikZ figure that conveys both its visual layout and its mathematical meaning.”
“Verify that this CC BY 3.0 source can be incorporated into a CC BY-SA 4.0 work and explain the compatibility mechanism.”
“Draft a Python example using the pyomo package that solves the following linear program; do not invent solver options you are not certain exist.”
“Identify any LaTeX macros referenced but not defined in this file and propose corrections.”
All AI-assisted contributions were reviewed by the author. Numerical examples were verified by running code and, where appropriate, by independent computation in tools such as scipy.optimize and Gurobi. The mathematical correctness of every statement, proof, and example in this book is the author’s responsibility.
Readers who suspect an error (whether it was AI-introduced or not) are encouraged to report it via the project’s GitHub issue tracker or by emailing open.optimization@gmail.com. Errata will be acknowledged in the book’s revision history.
This disclosure follows the principles set out by Virginia Tech Publishing’s open educational resources program and is consistent with emerging norms across the OER community: AI assistance is acceptable in production of open educational materials when (i) the human author remains responsible for content and accuracy, (ii) AI is not listed as an author, and (iii) the use of AI is disclosed transparently in the published work.