ChatGPT in scientific and academic research: future fears and reassurances

Purpose This purpose of this study is to examine future fears and reassurances about the nature of the recent artificial intelligence (AI) language model-based application, ChatGPT, use in the fields of scientific research and academic works and assignments. This study aims at exploring the positive and negative aspects of the use of ChatGPT by researchers and students. This paper recommends some practical academic steps and suggestions that help the researchers and publishers curtail the percentage of spread of unethical works such as plagiarism. Design/methodology/approach The emergence of OpenAI’s Generative Pre-Trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) has recently sparked controversy and heated debate among academics worldwide about its use and application. The concern of experts and researchers about the GPT-3 platform entails how it would be of much support to the researchers and academic staff and how it might be used and misused to negatively affect academic and scholarly works. This research explored future fears and reassurances about the nature of Chat GPT-3 use at academic and scientific levels. The data for this research was obtained through the qualitative interviews of seven experts in AI, scientific research and academic works. The findings of the study showed that ChatGPT-3 has significant potential and is helpful if used wisely and ethically at scientific and academic levels. On the other hand, the results reported the experts' fears of the frequent use of ChatGPT including the misuse of ChatGPT as a tool to plagiarize and make the researchers dependent, not self-reliant and lazy. The widespread concern of many scholars is that ChatGPT would lead to an increase in the possibility of plagiarism and provide less control over research and writing ethics. This study proposed some stages and suggested that AI language model programs, including ChatGPT, should be integrated with widespread publishers and academic platforms to curtail the percentage of plagiarism and organize the process of publishing and writing scientific research and academic works to save the rights of researchers and writers. Findings The findings of the research presented that ChatGPT can act as a potential and useful tool if used wisely and ethically at scientific and academic fields. On contrast, the results also reported the negative aspects of the extensive ChatGPT's that leads to the spread of plagiarism and making the researchers and the students machine-dependent, not self-reliant and lazy. This study proposed some stages and suggested that AI language model programs, including ChatGPT, should be integrated with widespread publishers and academic platforms to curtail the percentage of plagiarism and organize the process of publishing and writing scientific research and academic works to save rights of researchers and writers. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind to highlight the relationship between using ChatGPT and the spread of both positive and negative aspects of its extensive use in scientific research and academic work. The importance of this study lies in the fact that it presents the concerns and future fears of people in academia as they cope with and deal with the inevitable reality of AI language models such as ChatGPT.