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Artificial Intelligence

The intersection of AI, healthcare, cancer research, ethics, and publishing

What is Generative AI?

Generative AI (GenAI) tools use natural language processing, an AI domain, to respond to user queries. As it has gained increased attention, questions guiding its use in academic, scientific, and other settings have come into the spotlight.

The Ethics and Use of Generative AI

There is the promise that generative AI, like ChatGPT, can cut down on the amount of time it takes to complete a review. But you have to know the strengths and limitations of the tool you are using. 

Before using a generative AI tool, explore its parameters, and be skeptical about anything that seems too good to be true or removes all human intervention from a task.

  • Generative AI tools may use the information you provide as training data.
  • How you ask for information matters.
    • If you ask AI a question with bias, the response will likely also contain that bias.
    • Consider using a framework like CLEAR or PROMPT to frame your question.
  • The information provided by GenAI tools, including ChatGPT, is not always accurate. Learn about:
  • AI can be helpful for generating ideas that you vet and adapt. GenAI tools:
    • Can help you develop your research question.
    • Can help you to brainstorm inclusion and exclusion criteria for review projects.
    • May help determine relevant terms to include in a search strategy.
    • Could assist with writing a structured planning document, like a protocol.
  • Consider how a generative AI tool performs literature searching and summarizing.
    • Does the tool pull from actual publications?
      • If so, does it only include open-access publications or publication abstracts?
      • Does it look at the entire publication, or only the title/abstract?
      • Is it limited by date?
    • What is left out and how might that impact your work?
  • AI cannot build a systematic search strategy.
    • It may recommend subject header terms that do not exist.
  • Generative AI use can lead to AI-plagiarized writing.
  • Using generative AI tools requires human skill and time to review the information you receive.
    • Information will likely not be the same if you ask the same question on a different date.
    • Consider whether the time you spend reviewing the AI response cancels out any time you save by using generative AI.
  • On a larger scale, generative AI tools have significant environmental impacts,

Should I use GenAI in my literature search flowchart

Click "Website" at the bottom of the list to view all results in PubMed.

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Generative AI Research Tools

This is not a comprehensive list. For more, visit Ithaka S&R's Generative AI Tracker. 
Chart adapted with permission from Macquarie University Library.

The listing of a tool does not indicate endorsement by the MSK Library. 
Information is subject to change. Check each tool's website for the latest information.