Weekly reads: ChatGPT as author, COVID pub concern, CRISPR kit

Have you had the chance to play around on ChatGPT, the open AI? It can “talk” to you in text kind of like a person.

Sam Altman, OpenAI, Chat GPT
Sam Altman CEO of OpenAI, maker of Chat GPT. Screen grab of YouTube video.

I have tried it out.

It’s quite interesting to type in scientific questions and see what pops out. Often it is high-quality text and solid ideas, but not always. You can also ask it philosophical questions.  ChatGPT will even write pages of text for you if you ask. Naturally, there are concerns about people misusing this resource. For instance, students could have the AI write their homework essays for them.

In science, researchers could try to have ChatGPT write papers for them. How serious is this? Nature editorialized (below) on the threat it sees.

Tools such as ChatGPT threaten transparent science; here are our ground rules for their use, Nature. This editorial begins to consider the complexities posed by this open AI. Other AI might be able to create fake data figures. We’re in a hairy period where it’s not clear how such AI tools will disrupt research publishing. You can already find articles on PubMed that list ChatGPT as an author.

Apparently Google also sees ChatGPT as a threat to its near monopoly on internet search. I can see why. If something like Chat GPT would also be plugged into the web, it may deliver a much more pleasant and potentially more useful output to searches.

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1 thought on “Weekly reads: ChatGPT as author, COVID pub concern, CRISPR kit”

  1. Re the election of the new chair at CIRM, for more information and his views on priorities, check out the articles last Thursday on the California Stem Cell Report, the only independent, regular source of information on CIRM for the past 18 years.

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