In case you didn't already know... Excerpts from Scientific American:
AI Slop Is Spurring Record Requests for Imaginary Journals
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-slop-is-spurring-record-requests-for-imaginary-journals/ .
... OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot and other models are befuddling students, researchers and archivists by generating “incorrect or fabricated archival references,” according to the ICRC, which runs some of the world’s most used research archives. (Scientific American has asked the owners of those AI models to comment.)
AI models not only point some users to false sources but also cause problems for researchers and librarians, who end up wasting their time looking for requested nonexistent records, says Library of Virginia chief of researcher engagement Sarah Falls. ... ..
. The ICRC recommends that people consult online catalogs or references in existing published scholarly works to find references to real studies instead of assuming anything cited by an AI is real, no matter how authoritative it might sound. The Library of Virginia will be asking researchers to vet their sources for these requests, Falls says, and to disclose if a source originated from AI. “We’ll likely also be letting our users know that we must limit how much time we spend verifying information.”
Read full article: AI Slop Is Spurring Record Requests for Imaginary Journals
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-slop-is-spurring-record-requests-for-imaginary-journals/ .
I'm not surprised. I sometimes look at those AI summaries that Google automatically generates for a search, and there often is misinformation and/or plain errors.
Anyone who believes that this stuff is real is just kidding themselves. If I'm desperate, I might use it as a starting point, but I will verify everything as well.
It just gets it from other sources and puts the info in it's own words. It does the research is seconds. But if you want to find out about something it's a quick way without looking through many sites to do the research and being satisfied that a given site is giving you right info.
The problem is that it draws erroneous conclusions from the information it gets. And when there is conflicting information, it often chooses incorrectly.
I find that it also gets confused easily, and can go off on tangents that have little to do with the original search.
But like I said, sometimes it gets me started in my search.
I never, ever, ever take anything from it as the truth, without verifying for myself.
It's scary to think that scientists use this technology to summarize their own work. I hope they check it very carefully after the fact. With the time it takes in doing so, they probably could have written their own summaries, without introducing potential errors.