Ninth Thing: Generative AI

Research is long and life is short. The emergence of generative AI (GAI) tools promises to help organise and synthesise the mountains of information with which researchers are faced. These tools claim to scan databases, extract relevant research, summarise articles and polish prose with the press of a button. It sounds incredible (and maybe a little unsettling). This post, written by Justin Park, looks at some popular tools and evaluate their outputs.

A disclaimer: everything in this post is derived from the author’s own experience and use of these tools as of July 2023. The capabilities of these tools will change…and not always for the better. You may want to familiarise yourself with a broad overview of how these tools work, where they get their data and some of the ethical issues as well as some info on prompt engineering. And remember, graduate researchers are responsible for understanding the University’s Academic Integrity guidelines around generative AI tools.