AI-CHATBOTS & ACADEMIC RESEARCH:AVOIDING THE PITFALLS

26 October, 2023 | 12:00 - 13:00

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

AI-Chatbots are here to stay, and they can be of considerable assistance to academic researchers. They can
help at most stages in academic research (and general academic study too) from identifying a suitable
research question, to the literature review, to the nal write up of the work. However, there are also some
dangers in using this technology that academic researchers should be aware of.
Some of the areas where considerable care needs to be taken include:

  • Bias: There are a number of ways that bias can affect the output of an AI-Chatbot including the
    data set, the algorithms, the questions asked and the interpretation of the results.
  • Accuracy: AI-Chatbots make mistakes and their output needs to be triangulated.
  • Plagiarism: It is important to carefully and thoroughly understand the tension between AI-Chat
    bots and plagiarism.
  • Ethical concerns: The boundary between what is ethical and what is not acceptable in academic
    research has to be continually monitored.
  • Security risks: Chatbots can be used to collect sensitive information from researchers and care
    has to be exercised not to let this happen.
  • Lack of transparency: How the algorithm works may be an issue.
  • Dependency: It is relatively easy to rely too much on the assistance of an AI-Chatbot.

This webinar is relevant to academics and researchers from most Faculties, Departments and Schools. It delivers practical useful information which may be put to use immediately. It also gives participants an opportunity to network with other researchers. All participants will receive a comprehensive set of slides.

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR

Professor Dan Remenyi has closely followed developments in AI since the 1960’s shortly after the expression articial intelligence was coined by John McCarty at Dartford. Over this period, he has observed may twists and turns in this technology which has resulted in some very interesting applications. One of these is the AI-Chatbot for which it is now claimed that there are as many as a billion enquiries per month. During the past 30 years he has held various professorial appointments at Universities in the UK, Republic of Ireland, South Africa and Sweden. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 books and some 50 academically refereed papers. He is published in all 4 of the ‘A’ rated Journals in the United Kingdom in Information Systems Management. Some of his books have been translated into Chinese, Japanese and Romanian. He holds a BSocSc, an MBA and a PhD. He is an alumnus of UKZN.

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