Publishers of thousands of scholarly journals have banned contributing authors from using the artificial intelligence-based chatbot, ChatGBT, amid concerns that it could litter academic literature with flawed or even fabricated research.
And the editor-in-chief of the American magazine “Science”, Holden Thorpe, announced the implementation of an updated editorial policy, which prohibits the use of text from the “ChatGPT” program, explaining that the program cannot be listed as an author, according to the British newspaper “The Guardian”.
“Given the madness that has arisen around this – the sudden proliferation of ChatGPT – it is good to make it very clear that we will not allow the program to be authored or to have its text used in scientific papers,” Thorpe said.
Leading scientific journals require contributing authors to sign a form declaring that they are responsible for their contribution to the scientific study, but here it states that “because GPT Chat cannot do this, it cannot be considered an author.”
Holden Thorpe also indicated that he believes that using GBT chat software in preparing scientific research is problematic, “because it makes a lot of mistakes, which can find their way into the literature, and if scientists rely on artificial intelligence programs to prepare literature reviews, Or sum up their findings, the proper context for the work and the in-depth scrutiny the results deserve could be lost.”
In a related context, other publishers have made similar changes, as did the editor-in-chief of the “Science” magazine. Chatgpt can be listed as the author.
But the industrial chatbot has not been outright banned by the publishing company. The tool and the like can still be used to prepare papers, provided full details are disclosed in the scientific manuscript.
While Michael Eisen, editor-in-chief of the science website eLife, argues that GPT Chat cannot be authored, he believes its adoption is inevitable.
“I think the better question is not whether the software will be allowed to be used, but how to manage the fact that it is being used,” he said.
“The most important thing, for now at least, is for the authors to be very upfront about using the software, to describe how to use it, and to be clear about using the tool, that they take responsibility for its output.”
ChatGBT is a fluent chatbot developed by California-based company OpenAI that has impressed or annoyed more than a million human users by posting poems, short stories, articles, and even personal advice. Since its launch in November 2022.
ChatGBT automatically generates text based on typed prompts, in a way that is more advanced and creative than the typical Silicon Valley chatbots.
The chatbot debuted in late November and quickly caused a stir as tech executives and venture capitalists flocked to talk about it and the revolution it could cause, comparing it to the debut of the iPhone.