What are they? In non-technical terms, ChatGPT and other AI chatbots are tools that have "learned" how to have a conversation with you or respond to your prompts based on their training on a large amount of data. This is called a "large language model."
Can I use them as a UT student?
It is up to your professor if or how you can use it in a course. Review your syllabus or talk to your professor.
If you do use an AI chatbot, remember to disclose use and cite anything generated by the chatbot.
What are the problems with using AI chatbots to help with research?
- ChatGPT and similar chatbots are designed to provide "plausible" responses, not credible responses.As a result, the information they present can be incorrect. It is up to you to evaluate credibility, just as with any other source of information.
- ChatGPT and similar chat bots are trained on a large amount of data but it isnt always current enough for your needs and doesn't include everything you may need for your research. For example, in the case of ChatGPT, as of January 2024, the data ingested from the Web used to train ChatGPT 4.0 only goes through April 2023. If you ask it who won the US presidential election in November 2024, it cannot answer. In addition, most paywalled content, which means the content the Libraries subscribe to, is not used to train ChatGPT and similar chatbots.
- ChatGPT and similar chatbots make up/"hallucinate" plausible sounding citations to sources that don't actually exist.
How can AI chatbots be helpful for research?
Note: Before doing any of these things, make sure that they are allowed by your professor.
- Use a generative AI chatbot to start brainstorming a topic or research question. For example, you can ask it to list and describe some topics related to your course content. You can then test how viable the topic is by examining the results of your own searches for information. Ask yourself if there is enough information about it or if there is so much that you need to narrow the topic; and if the information is current enough for your research.
- Use a generative AI chatbot to brainstorm keywords to research your topic in library search tools. You can then use these search terms to search for information in the library.
- If you are researching a controversial topic, you can ask a generative AI chatbot for the pros and cons. For example, if you are researching self-driving cars, you could ask it to list and describe the benefits of self-drving cars and the drawbacks or problems with self-driving cars. You can then use this list to find sources about those specific benefits and risks and dig deeper.
