George D. Lundberg, MD
An internet bot, web robot, robot or simply just a bot is a software application that runs automated tasks over the internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity on the internet, such as messaging, on a large scale. One particular bot, ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), owned by capped-profit company OpenAI, is taking the information world by storm. Some liken its potential to create change as historically comparable to the hand calculator, Google, Amazon, the iPhone, and Wikipedia.
If robots can write medical papers (they can), how will medical journal authors, editors, publishers, and readers deal with that?
Fortunately, our planet hosts a not-for-profit organization called The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) (disclosure: I am one of some 20 founders of WAME) that was created in response to the internet and world wide web, for just this kind of issue.
On January 20, 2023, WAME published a position paper in open access, "Recommendations on ChatGPT and Chatbots in Relation to Scholarly Publications." There are nine authors (all are officers or directors of WAME), and the document formally represents the position of the Board of Directors.
The introductory materials on this paper are extraordinarily instructive, and I recommend that each of you reads it completely, even if only to protect yourself from misinformation.
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COMMENTARY
ChatGPT: To Bot or Not to Bot?
George D. Lundberg, MD
DisclosuresJanuary 25, 2023
George D. Lundberg, MD
An internet bot, web robot, robot or simply just a bot is a software application that runs automated tasks over the internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity on the internet, such as messaging, on a large scale. One particular bot, ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), owned by capped-profit company OpenAI, is taking the information world by storm. Some liken its potential to create change as historically comparable to the hand calculator, Google, Amazon, the iPhone, and Wikipedia.
If robots can write medical papers (they can), how will medical journal authors, editors, publishers, and readers deal with that?
Fortunately, our planet hosts a not-for-profit organization called The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) (disclosure: I am one of some 20 founders of WAME) that was created in response to the internet and world wide web, for just this kind of issue.
On January 20, 2023, WAME published a position paper in open access, "Recommendations on ChatGPT and Chatbots in Relation to Scholarly Publications." There are nine authors (all are officers or directors of WAME), and the document formally represents the position of the Board of Directors.
The introductory materials on this paper are extraordinarily instructive, and I recommend that each of you reads it completely, even if only to protect yourself from misinformation.
Credits:
Lead image: iStock/Getty Images
Image 1: George D. Lundberg, MD
Medscape Internal Medicine © 2023 WebMD, LLC
Any views expressed above are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of WebMD or Medscape.
Cite this: ChatGPT: To Bot or Not to Bot? - Medscape - Jan 25, 2023.
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Authors and Disclosures
Authors and Disclosures
Author
George D. Lundberg, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Cancer Commons
Disclosure: George D. Lundberg, MD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.