This guide looks at the finding information and literature searching aspects of Artificial Intelligence tools. Large Language Models (LLMs) are changing the way we can find and use information.
It becomes easy for you to ask questions and summarise large amounts of information creating new text - but it is more important than ever for you to ask the critical thinking questions about where that information comes from and whether it is correct.
Many of the chatbot LLMs in operation at the moment have been trained using the open internet - which as you know may contain more cat jokes and memes than full text academic articles (these are often locked away behind paywalls that Library subscriptions give you access to). This is changing, with for example a large publisher selling data to Microsoft.
Research specific AI tools may have a layer of AI on top of their search, focussing the search on academic information, but it is important for you to consider where the tool is searching and potential biases.
Many publishers and Library systems are also working on their own integrations of AI tools, which then have access to that particular subset of information in an academic database.