The rapid development of large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4 has spurred the growth of AI-powered search engines, designed to make it easier for researchers to locate groundbreaking papers and synthesize key findings in their fields.
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Katharine Sanderson’s recent article in Nature explores the varying experiences of scientists using these tools, such as Elicit and Scite. While some praise their usefulness, others express concerns about their accuracy and relevance.
Key Takeaways:
- AI-powered search engines like Elicit and Scite are emerging. These promising tools for researchers offer the potential to streamline research and suggest unconventional papers.
- Experiences with these search engines have been mixed. While some users find them valuable, others raise concerns about their accuracy, relevance, and ability to prioritize recency in fast-paced fields.
- Future improvements in AI search engines will rely on collaboration between tools and partnerships with scholarly publishers to address researchers’ concerns.
Clémentine Fourrier, a Paris-based researcher working with Hugging Face, tried using the AI search engine Elicit to find papers for her PhD thesis. Despite its potential to suggest unconventional papers, she found the search engine’s paper summaries “useless” and its recommendations not always relevant. Conversely, Aaron Tay, a librarian at Singapore Management University, had a more positive experience, claiming Elicit was on the verge of replacing Google Scholar as his primary academic search tool.
These differing opinions could be attributed to the researchers’ fields of study. Fourrier, who focuses on machine learning, emphasized that the recency of publications is crucial in her area, a factor that Elicit failed to prioritize.
Scite, another AI-driven tool developed in New York City, uses LLMs to organize and contextualize paper citations. The platform has partnered with over 30 scholarly publishers, including major firms such as Wiley and the American Chemical Society, and has signed numerous indexing agreements, granting access to millions of scholarly articles. Scite is also collaborating with Consensus, a tool launched in 2022 that extracts and distills findings directly from research.
Despite the advancements, there is significant room for improvement. Meghan Azad, a child-health pediatrician at the University of Manitoba, was unimpressed by Consensus’ results when she inquired about the connection between vaccines and autism. Mushtaq Bilal, a postdoc at the University of Southern Denmark, appreciated the potential of Elicit and Consensus but acknowledged that their capabilities are still developing.
The emergence of AI-powered search engines in the scientific community has generated mixed reactions. While some researchers find these tools valuable, others remain skeptical about their accuracy and reliability. As AI search engines continue to evolve, only time will tell if they become indispensable resources for academics or merely create further confusion in an already complex research landscape.
Detailed Pros and Cons of AI-Powered Science Search Engines
| Pros | Cons |
| 1. Suggests unconventional papers, expanding researchers’ scope | 1. Inaccurate or irrelevant paper recommendations, wasting time |
| 2. Potential to streamline research, saving time and resources | 2. Poor quality or “useless” paper summaries, requiring extra work |
| 3. Democratizes and simplifies access to research for all users | 3. Possible field-dependent effectiveness, inconsistent results |
| 4. Organizes and contextualizes paper citations (Scite) | 4. May not prioritize recency in fast-paced fields (Elicit) |
| 5. Access to millions of scholarly articles (Scite) | 5. Results may not always be convincing or reliable (Consensus) |
| 6. Collaboration between tools (scite and Consensus) | 6. AI tools still in development, not yet fully refined |
| 7. Provides a new perspective on search queries (Elicit) | 7. Lack of expert curation, potentially misleading information |
| 8. Partnerships with major scholarly publishers (Scite) | 8. Inability to distinguish between belief-based and evidence-based research (Consensus) |
| 9. Distills findings directly from research (Consensus) | 9. May require manual flagging of contentious or disproven claims |
| 10. Adaptable to diverse specializations (Elicit) | 10. Room for improvement in understanding user intent and context |
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