Accuracy: AI Struggles with the Concept

June 30, 2023

For those who find reading and understanding research papers daunting, algorithms can help. At least according to the write-up, “5 AI Tools for Summarizing a Research Paper” at Cointelegraph. Writer Alice Ivey emphasizes research articles can be full of jargon, complex ideas, and technical descriptions, making them tricky for anyone outside the researchers’ field. It is AI to the rescue! That is, as long as you don’t mind summaries that contain a few errors. We learn:

“Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools that provide support for tackling the complexity of reading research papers can be used to solve this complexity. They can produce succinct summaries, make the language simpler, provide contextualization, extract pertinent data, and provide answers to certain questions. By leveraging these tools, researchers can save time and enhance their understanding of complex papers.

But it’s crucial to keep in mind that AI tools should support human analysis and critical thinking rather than substitute for them. In order to ensure the correctness and reliability of the data collected from research publications, researchers should exercise caution and use their domain experience to check and analyze the outputs generated by AI techniques. … It’s crucial to keep in mind that AI tools may not always accurately capture the context of the original publication, even though they can help summarize research papers.”

So, one must be familiar with the area of study to judge whether the AI got it right. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? One can imagine scenarios where relying on misinformation could have serious consequences. Or at least some embarrassment.

The article lists ChatGPT, QuillBot, SciSpacy, IBM Watson Discovery, and Semantic Scholar as our handy but potentially inaccurate AI explainers. Some readers may possess the knowledge needed to recognize a faulty summary and think such tools may at least save them a bit of time. It would be nice to know how much one would pay for that convenience, but that small detail is missing from the write-up. ChatGPT, for example, is $240 per year. It might be more cost effective to just read the articles for oneself.

Cynthia Murrell, June 30, 2023

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, News, Text processing

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.