For just under a year I have been using AI to assist in stove and lantern research. This has to date been on topics that I have not yet published. Often it is just to gain an insight into model numbers or their sequence. Often it has been amazingly successful and it helps when researching something that few people may have an interest in such as asbestos mantles made in Australia for old radiant heaters. AI also tends to offer to produce production ready copy for say magazines or forums. I have no problem with that at all, though I do think it should be acknowledged. As an example whilst researching a brand of blowlamps / blowtorches I was endeavouring to reconcile various dates with snippets of information I had. AI can often do a superb job when you provide a few accurate pieces of information. If it provided significant new information, more than what I was alluding too then I would acknowledge that accordingly. I have also done extensive work with AI on a few niggly issues still perplexing most lampies and stovies and I hope to report on that substantial progress soon. The salient points I would like to make are that AI is very, very useful for assisting us in research but I believe it should be acknowledged and there is obviously no shame in that as it improves the quality of our responses. Interestingly, I have often found it will refer at times to CPL and CCS so we are part of it’s big bank of knowledge! Lastly, it can be mistaken too.
I've found AI to be useful just so long as you're aware of it's limitations and error modes! As a research assistant it can be excellent, but it's wise to check it's sources as it can state absolute nonsense with an alarming degree of confidence.
I use AI to search for and find things, and it’s useful. But… It often hallucinates information (false references etc) and it does not (yet) discriminate between information it has gleaned that is true, and information that is false. It is also very stultifying as a writing tool. With my academic research hat on, we use advanced AI detection programs to weed out made up references that AI has hallucinated, and to find plagiarised text. You just need to read eBay to see how bad this is. So, yes, it’s useful indeed, but with a high degree of caution and scepticism. Cheers Tony
