You Cannot Search the Literature Using AI, and This Is Why

 

Before you use AI to search the literature, read this ... (It's only 1 page)

Oermann MH. You Cannot Search the Literature Using Artificial Intelligence, and This Is Why. Nurs Educ Perspect. 2024 Nov-Dec 01;45(6):337. doi: 10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000001344. Epub 2024 Oct 12. PMID: 39400193.  Link to article.

The Problems:

• ChatGPT and similar tools do NOT have access to the fulltext articles in MEDLINE, CINAHL, and other content behind paywalls.  This content is not part of the training data for AI.
• AI may miss potentially important studies
• AI may produce false information or misinformation 
• and frequently produces fake (hallucinated) citations.
• When AI was used for the literature review, up to 70% of the references cited were inaccurate or not relevant)
• extensive time was needed for fact checking
• current articles were missing
• and the draft included plagiarism.

What AI is good for:

• Use it to explore a topic
• Brainstorm ideas and potential questions to guide your search
• Generate additional key words for a search
• Use it for general editing
• If you use AI for drafting and revising content for a manuscript, you must review the text for accuracy and plagiarism and check every reference.