ChatGPT and a new academic reality: Artificial Intelligence‐written research papers and the ethics of the large language models in scholarly publishing

• Published in: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Vol. 74; no. 5; pp. 570 - 581
• Main Authors: Lund, Brady D., Wang, Ting, Mannuru, Nishith Reddy, Nie, Bing, Shimray, Somipam, Wang, Ziang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.05.2023; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subjects: Artificial intelligence; Chatbots; Desktop Publishing; Ethics; Influence of Technology; Language modeling; Language Processing; Large language models; Machine learning; Natural language processing; Scholarly publishing
• ISSN: 2330-1635; 2330-1643
• DOI: 10.1002/asi.24750

This article discusses OpenAI's ChatGPT, a generative pre‐trained transformer, which uses natural language processing to fulfill text‐based user requests (i.e., a “chatbot”). The history and principles behind ChatGPT and similar models are discussed. This technology is then discussed in relation to its potential impact on academia and scholarly research and publishing. ChatGPT is seen as a potential model for the automated preparation of essays and other types of scholarly manuscripts. Potential ethical issues that could arise with the emergence of large language models like GPT‐3, the underlying technology behind ChatGPT, and its usage by academics and researchers, are discussed and situated within the context of broader advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing for research and scholarly publishing.