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Doing research with AI tools -- avoiding the trap of fabricated URLs

by Tom Johnson on Nov 9, 2023
categories: academics-and-practitioners aipodcastswriting

In this short podcast, I explore using AI tools to do research, the potential for fake URLs, and how to deal with the fabrication. I started by using Claude to summarize a podcast and provide a list of salient points, including the potential counterargument. What I didn't expect was for Claude to fabricate a list of imagined research and then summarize the fictitious research to conclude that it lended support for the counterargument. I took Claude's list of research and pasted it into ChatGPT with Bing to browse the real-time web to validate the sources. Using Claude and ChatGPT in combination worked pretty well, but overall this is a tale of caution. You have to be suspicious of research provided by AIs and know how to use each tool according to its strengths.

Listen here:

By the way, here’s the Content Strategy podcast episode that I mentioned in this podcast.

About Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.

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