Trend alert: Scientific paper credits ChatGPT AI as an author

OpenAI's viral text generator ChatGPT has made some serious waves over the last couple of months, offering the public access to a chatbot that's arguably a vast improvement over its numerous and deeply flawed predecessors. In fact, one group of researchers is now so confident in its capabilities that they've included it as a coauthor in a scientific paper, marking yet another inflection point in the rise of AI chatbots and their widespread use.
A not-yet-peer-reviewed paper on ChatGPT's ability to pass the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) lists 11 researchers affiliated with the healthcare startup Ansible Health — and ChatGPT itself, raising eyebrows amongst experts. The move sparked a debate online about AI chatbots playing an active role in current scientific research, despite often being unable to distinguish between truth and fiction. The Ansible Health paper is part of a greater trend. In a report this week, Nature found several more examples of scientists listing ChatGPT as an author, with at least one being chalked up to human error. The move has publishers scrambling to adjust to a new reality in which chatbots are actively contributing to scientific research — to various degrees, that is.