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Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Dall-E, and Midjourney have found a place in the academic and educational landscape, offering support for student and researchers. In this post, I am sharing my experiences with Elicit.com, a tool that applies language models to assist researchers and students in finding and summarizing research papers.

ChatGPT 3.5, a popular tool offering text-to-text conversions, is increasingly used to assist in writing assignments and papers. However, it lacks direct access to academic databases and articles. Instead, it generates responses based on information within its general knowledge base, which is current up to September 2021. This may lead to inaccuracies when searching for relevant academic content.

During one of my electives last year, I was introduced to Elicit.com. After submitting your research questions, Elicit develops a list of the most related articles and offers a summary including findings of the top four papers. Like Google Scholar, it provides insights into each article’s prominence by sharing the number of citations of the article in further research. Furthermore, it displays the article title, authors, the journal it was published in, and an abstract summary per article. Often the platform is able to provide a link to a PDF version of the paper, as well as the DOI link.

Since September this year, my experience with Elicit has been mixed. At times it delivered precisely what I needed to support my academic work. However, in many cases it presents articles and papers that lack prominence and reliability required to support my academic work. In most of these cases, turning to Google Scholar delivered me better results.

Part of this issue is likely my own prompts. Like ChatGPT, I realized that understanding Elicit requires more time and better understanding of how to structure my queries best. Despite the challenges, I am still convinced of Elicit’s potential. It has definitely helped me in several instances by providing valuable results that I used in my work.

When further examining the platform, I discovered that Elicit operates on a credit-based payment model. When creating an account, you receive an initial amount of credits. Each workflow costs you a specific number of credits, depending on the amount of papers the platform has to analyse.

Despite actively using Elicit since September, I still have over 4000 credits remaining as can be seen in the picture below. A typical workflow costs less than 100 credits, allowing me to run over 50 additional questions. I find the pricing of credits pretty reasonable. It is interesting to see that, unlike ChatGPT 4, Elicit doesn’t use a subscription payment model. However, I highly doubt whether I will ever pay for Elicit’s platform in the future.

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In the world of generative AI, it is essential to balance fast paced innovation and privacy. In this context, Snapchats generative AI implementation called ‘My AI’ has been controversial since its launch. My AI is a chatbot that uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT-technology to allows you to have lifelike conversations with a chatbot within Snapchat. As can be seen in the picture below, My AI is always on top of your personal chat overview where the rest of your Snapchat interactions with friends are listed. Just like most of your friends, My AI can be recognised by a pink coloured ‘Bitmoji’, Snapchat’s signature customizable avatar. My AI draws the illusion it was designed to act as you digital assistant, but more importantly, your online best friend.

Now you may ask yourself: What is there so controversial about Snapchat’s My AI? We are all familiar with the wide range of chatbots using generative AI, what makes My AI so much more controversial?

Forming an estimated 20 percent of Snapchat’s total users, users aged 13 to 17 form a substantial part of Snapchat’s overall users. This age group is known to be particularly vulnerable to the impact of social media. Teenagers in this age group are still in a phase of developing their critical thinking skills. They may not possess the needed knowledge and skills to distinguish between artificial or misleading content and reality. This is where, in my opinion My AI’s design becomes concerning.

It is to be expected that certain users may find it challenging to differentiate between a chatbot and a friend. After all, the chatbot is part of your friend list and its avatar closely resembles the avatar of friends. My AI seems to be designed to create the illusion of genuine human conversations. As expected, this did not escape Snapchat’s attention. On Snapchat’s newsroom, the statement below was made:

“As with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. Please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance! All conversations with My AI will be stored and may be reviewed to improve the product experience. Please do not share any secrets with My AI and do not rely on it for advice.”¹

Before writing this post, I used My AI itself. While experimenting with My AI, which involved some controversial and unethical questions, I discovered that the chatbot is well-equipped with ethical boundaries and safety measures. The chatbot consistently provided ‘politically correct’ responses. However, it’s crucial to note that this blog’s main emphasis is not on the specific content of My AI’s conversation but, rather, on the rationale behind its existence and presentation.

I firmly believe that the current way My AI is presented on the platform is potentially misleading for Snapchat’s underaged users. My prediction is that , despite Snapchat’s warning, certain adolescents are likely to share personal information and might become reliant on My AI for personal advice. My suggestion for Snapchat would be to dehumanize My AI and implement frequent, repetitive warnings for underaged users regarding the chatbots artificial nature.

Now I invite you, as a reader, to share your opinion on this matter. And please feel free to express a different viewpoint.

¹=https://newsroom.snap.com/say-hi-to-my-ai?lang=en-US
Picture is retrieved from https://9to5mac.com/2023/04/24/snapchat-my-ai-pinned-to-feed-update/