‘AI is, at its heart and best, a tool’: Students, Faculty Weigh in on the Use of Large Language Models to Read Academic Papers

‘AI is, at its heart and best, a tool’: Students, Faculty Weigh in on the Use of Large Language Models to Read Academic Papers Reading time: about 5 minutes Artificial intelligence has grown commonplace in higher education, with some students using it to assist with learning and professors often acknowledging or integrating it into their classes. The development of large language models — a category of deep learning models trained to understand and generate natural language  —  could help young students and researchers in academia.  A recent study from Cornell physicists and Google researchers tested six LLM systems — including ChatGPT, Claude and Google Gemini — on their ability to read scientific literature at the level of a specialist. A Helpful Tool The study found that some systems performed better than others, revealing gaps in the current LLM capability. Researchers then created a wish list for areas AI developers should improve in future models.  Prof. Eunah Ah-Kim, physics, was a corresponding author for the study. Ah-Kim was motivated to contribute to the study because of how time-consuming it is to read and write scientific papers while simultaneously doing research.  “Many people quote review articles and citations without actually reading the paper,” Ah-Kim said.  Ah-Kim added that having a conversation with a person who understands the content can offer context and clarity, and AI can simulate those conversations to increase understanding. “AI models can be a...