New Item Type for artificial intelligence

Metabrarian

Hi All,
First post here, so please go easy on a newbie!
Are there any suggestions for creating an item type for Generative AI? The genie is out of the bottle, and students are going to need this functionality to cite AI as its use increases.
Any practical ideas would be sincerely appreciated! :-)

Have a great day

Andy

adamsmith

See https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/438403#Comment_438403

I think the norms on this (and what even counts as 'AI') are very much in flux and I don't think throwing an item type at it is necessarily the best way to go, certainly at this point (for now, I'd advise citing it as software as noted there, which it certainly is).

aborel

Interesting question. I see 3 different cases:
1. One wants to cite the tool itself: the Software type feels appropriate.
2. One wants to cite an output (full output, with prompts so that the reader can understand what happened): I guess Dataset or Web Page should work, as long as one obtains a stable snapshot of the experiment.
3. One wants to cite some specific, factual information obtained by a Generative AI: I don't think it should be done. Either Generative AIs become smart enough to cite the original, verifiable source (I assume that's how things could evolve, and then citing the primary source will be the way to go), or they will continue to produce unverified statements that should not be trusted for academic work.

Open for debate, of course :-)

adamsmith

Yes, that sounds about right to me, certainly at this time.

Metabrarian

Thanks guys, these solutions are just fine to work with at the moment.
It all seems up for grabs at the moment:
- APA recommends 'Personal Communication' - e.g.(OpenAI, personal communication, January 16, 2023).
- More at Cite-Them-Right: https://www.citethemrightonline.com/sourcetype?docid=b-9781350927964&tocid=b-9781350927964-217

Thanks for all your help, really appreciated!

Have a good one
Andy :-)

mikisan

I really do think we need a type for chatbot answers; or at least to treat them differently than just a Web Page.

Provided we have a Forum post type, with the addition that when saving a question from Stackexchange we are even offered the option of saving the question or the answers individually, a very convenient feature, I think chatbot question/answers should be given the same treatment. I don't see much difference (in regards to item types) between a Stackoverflow answer by smartyduck_79 or a Bard one by GPT_4; but I wouldn't object to generative AI having its own item type.