Don’t Trust AI With Your Research. Not Yet.
With AI purveyors like ChatGPT and Google Gemini (formerly Bard) ballyhooing their emerging platforms, you might think: “Great! Now I don’t have to do research anymore, or fact check my work. I’ll just let AI do it.”
Nice if you could. But before you entrust the veracity of your writing—and your reputation—to a technology its creators are racing to market rife with imperfections, note what I’ve personally experienced.
When AI stormed into existence last year I tried a little experiment. I fed ChatGPT several facts about me and asked it to compose a bio based on those details.
It did, but not before embellishing it with a litany of falsehoods, boasts and made-up accomplishments that made me blush.
Okay, I reasoned, it’s a new technology. It has bugs. It was overly trying to please me, like a puppy effusively licking my face. I wrote it off as interesting but grossly unreliable.
Last week I gave AI a second chance. Here’s what happened:
Thinking they surely must have improved those platforms in the ensuing year, I called on Gemini and ChatGPT to do some quick research that would have taken me hours.
I asked them to come up with 10 famous graduates of each of the iconic colleges and high schools served by the Broadway Local “1” subway line in New York City. It was for an article I published on Substack titled “The Brain Train.”
Well, as requested, they spat out those lists in a flash. Problem was, upon checking some of the information, I found it riddled with errors.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not go to high school at Horace Mann in Riverdale in the Bronx; she went to James Madison in Brooklyn.
Nor did Joaquin Phoenix attend Fieldston, also in Riverdale. He was home-schooled.
Those were just two of many inaccuracies that convinced me AI just hastily scoops up whatever’s out there—information, misinformation, disinformation—without going to the most reliable sources, or verifying its work.
Which I ended up doing myself, getting most of my info directly from the websites of the schools themselves.
So, as far as I’m concerned, AI has a long way to go to earn my trust.
That’s just my own anecdotal take on it, but if your job depends on dispensing accurate information, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it.
Artificial intelligence? Sure, if you don’t mind artificial results.
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© 2024 Jerry McTigue
Jerry McTigue is an award-winning advertising copywriter, has written for major city newspapers and national magazines, is the author of seven books and a member of the American Society of Journalists & Authors (ASJA).