Check Your Sources: Using AI for Literature Retrieval

AI chatbots have quickly become useful tools in the writing process for drafting manuscripts, scientific proposals and grant applications.  While the technology is advancing rapidly, output from generative AI systems (such as Copilot, ChatGPT, Bard) are prone to errors and fabrication.

WHSC Librarians have noticed an increase in requests from researchers for articles that do not exist.  A bibliographic citation provided by a chatbot may look realistic, with a journal title, DOI and page numbers, but it may be a “hallucination”, a fake, created by the system.

Follow these tips to avoid citing bogus articles:

1. Write your prompt precisely to state that the answer must include URLs or PubMed identifiers (PMIDs) to the articles cited.
2. Confirm the papers exist and make the same claims suggested in the AI summary.

Still unsure? Contact us at Ask a Librarian, our online reference service, for help verifying the citation.