A Doctor Published Several Research Papers With Breakneck Speed Thanks to AI Chatbot
A radiologist at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Dr. Som Biswas, found a way to make his career easier by using AI chatbot called ChatGPT for his research and publication of serious articles. After experimenting with the AI chatbot, he was able to create an article about medical writing by prompting ChatGPT section by section. Dr. Biswas then submitted the paper to Radiology, a monthly peer-reviewed journal from the Radiological Society of North America, and it was published after undergoing peer-review. Since then, he has used the AI chatbot to write at least 16 papers in four months and published five articles in four different journals on various topics outside his radiology expertise.
However, the use of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT has raised concerns about the erosion of credibility in academic publishing. Many experts worry about the quality and uniqueness of the papers generated by AI chatbots. Stefan Duma, editor-in-chief of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering, has seen an exponential increase in the number of different papers submitted for publication in his journal, including the two he published from Biswas in the letters to the editor section. While he was willing to publish Biswas' articles, Duma has also rejected several other articles generated by ChatGPT and other LLMs due to their low quality.
The use of AI chatbots in academia has created an entirely new landscape for researchers to navigate, and it's becoming harder as these tools proliferate and become more sophisticated. While the use of LLMs in academia could become an invaluable tool for researchers whose first language isn't English, many researchers have been abusing the chatbot to churn out dozens of articles in the past few months alone. Some authors have not even acknowledged the fact that they used ChatGPT or other models to help generate the articles.
While Dr. Biswas is an evangelist for the emerging technology, he also acknowledges that there are limitations and concerns about the use of AI chatbots in academic publishing. The scientific community must find ways to ensure the quality and credibility of the papers generated by AI chatbots.
