Artificial Intelligence: For Students

Always check the course syllabus or speak with your instructor to determine the extent to which you can and should use generative AI in completing your course work.  

AI chatbots are not search engines. Search engines find information, AI generates information. However, multiple search engines, including Google and Bing, incorporate generative AI results into their regular search results. Google uses Gemini to develop "AI Overviews," while Bing uses Copilot to create similar search result summaries. You may see these summaries at the top or the side of a search result panel and may have already used them when browsing online. You should treat these summaries as you would any information from a chatbot, taking steps to evaluate as needed.

What's the difference between Chatbots and search engines?

"Search engines retrieve text that already exists and connect users to it, while generative chatbots create new text based on highly complex language models that attempt to provide the most likely sequence of words based on the information it has been trained on" (Information Discovery with AI - Generative Artificial Intelligence - Library Guides at Brown University).

Will AI provide more information than a search engine?

Neither chatbots nor search engines have access to the full text of all the information in the world. Some firewall-protected information may only be accessible in places like our library databases. 

Can chatbots ever connect to the internet?

While some chatbots are connected to the live internet, their algorithms function differently than typical search engines, and they "can still have 'hallucinations' and deliver false information. These systems frequently generate responses that contain unsupported statements and inaccurate citations. And, of course, the Internet itself is full of false or biased information" (Information Discovery with AI - Generative Artificial Intelligence - Library Guides at Brown University).

AI research search tools

There are certain AI tools that are more similar to search engines (e.g. Consensus, Elicit, or database search tools) but many of the popular tools you may come across when seeking information should be approached differently.

AI chatbots and similar tools can be good for:

• Getting quick background information on a new topic
  • In other words, as a starting point for inquiry rather than something you consult later in the research process
• Brainstorming in preparation for an assignment or overcoming writer's block
  • Use generative AI as a sounding board to bounce ideas, using iterative, conversational prompting to develop your own thinking (kind of like talking to a peer or a tutor)
  • Ask AI tools to generate lists of topics, keywords, and search strings
• Considering a topic from new angles or perspectives
  • Generative AI can be an excellent way to develop a more nuanced understanding of a topic you're interested in or come up with new and exciting dimensions to your research you hadn't previously considered
  • In other words, it can be an inspiration for taking your own work in new directions!

Text adapted from "How to use AI Tools" by University of Rhode Island under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License 

Use caution when...

• Asking for a list of sources for research (you may end up with a bunch of sources that sound great, but don't really exist)
• Generating a list of prominent researchers or thinkers in a particular field (you may get output with a gender or racial bias, or you might get a list of people that aren't real!)
• Asking for high-level information you don't have the expertise to evaluate (because AI tools can hallucinate, generative AI is a great tool for background information, but you should only ask it questions you have the capacity to fact-check yourself)

Text from "How to use AI Tools" by University of Rhode Island under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License 

Note: These tools are experimental and under development and have not been evaluated by Iona University Libraries. Functionality, fee for use, and access may change at any time. Please review tool documentation for privacy and data security. 

• Perplexity.ai - A chatbot with the ability to display the source of the information it provides. 
• Consensus - AI-powered academic search engine.
• Elicit.com -  Main workflow is Literature Reviews by asking a research question or use tasks to brainstorm. Open Access content only.
• Copilot - Chatbot from Microsoft. 
• Socratic - AI-powered app comes directly from Google, focusing on math and science.
• Connected Papers  - A visual tool to help researchers and applied scientists find and explore papers relevant to their field of work.
• Inciteful - Consists of two tools. The Paper Discovery tool builds a network of papers from citations. The Literature Connector allows you to enter two papers, and it results in an interactive visualization showing you how the literature connects them.
• LitMaps - Creates interactive literature maps. 
• Research Rabbit - A tool for exploring new areas and writing literature reviews. Allows you to uncover papers related to your area of research easily and shows links between authors. Currently free. 
• Keenious - A tool that uses AI to search for literature by analyzing your writing. Keenious offers add-ons for both Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
• scite - A platform for discovering and evaluating scientific articles via Smart Citations. Smart Citations allow users to see how a publication has been cited by providing the context of the citation and a classification describing whether it provides supporting or contrasting evidence for the cited claim.
• Semantic Scholar - AI-powered research tool for scientific literature.  
• Scholarcy - Summarizes articles. 
• Glasp - A social web highlighter to use to highlight and organize quotes and ideas from the web without switching back and forth, and access other people’s learning. 
• SciSpace - Research and document analysis. Uses GPT-3 to explain papers from a repository of 270 million + papers.  You can also upload a PDF and have it summarize the paper’s contents and search for topics. Allows you to limit by year of publication, type of publication, and other parameters.
• Wolfram Alpha - Answer engine that uses its algorithms and knowledge base in tandem with AI technology to provide information on math, science, technology, society, culture, and everyday life. 
• Open Knowledge Maps - Enhances the discovery and visibility of scientific research by providing a visual interface for exploring research topics, making it easier to identify relevant studies and key concepts.