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Comment on ChatGPT Mostly Source Wikipedia; Google AI Overviews Mostly Source Reddit

Chulk@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

I think the academic advice about Wikipedia was sadly mistaken.

Yeah, a lot of people had your perspective about Wikipedia while I was in college, but they are wrong, according to Wikipedia.

From the link:

We advise special caution when using Wikipedia as a source for research projects. Normal academic usage of Wikipedia is for getting the general facts of a problem and to gather keywords, references and bibliographical pointers, but not as a source in itself. Remember that Wikipedia is a wiki. Anyone in the world can edit an article, deleting accurate information or adding false information, which the reader may not recognize. Thus, you probably shouldn’t be citing Wikipedia. This is good advice for all tertiary sources such as encyclopedias, which are designed to introduce readers to a topic, not to be the final point of reference. Wikipedia, like other encyclopedias, provides overviews of a topic and indicates sources of more extensive information.

I personally use ChatGPT like I would Wikipedia. It’s a great introduction to a subject, especially in my line of work, which is software development. I can get summarized information about new languages and frameworks really quickly, and then I can dive into the official documentation when I have a high level understanding of the topic at hand. Unfortunately, most people do not use LLMs this way.

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Mniot@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

This is good advice for all tertiary sources such as encyclopedias, which are designed to introduce readers to a topic, not to be the final point of reference. Wikipedia, like other encyclopedias, provides overviews of a topic and indicates sources of more extensive information.

The whole paragraph is kinda FUD except for this. Normal research practice is to (get ready for a shock) do research and not just copy a high-level summary of what other people have done. If your professors were saying, “don’t cite encyclopedias, which includes Wikipedia” then that’s fine. But my experience was that Wikipedia was specifically called out as being especially unreliable and that’s just nonsense.

I personally use ChatGPT like I would Wikipedia

Eesh. The value of a tertiary source is that it cites the secondary sources (which cite the primary). If you strip that out, how’s it different from “some guy told me…”? I think your professors did a bad job of teaching you about how to read sources. Maybe because they didn’t know themselves. :-(

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- Chulk@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  my experience was that Wikipedia was specifically called out as being especially unreliable and that’s just nonsense.
  
  Let me clarify then. It’s unreliable as a cited source in Academia. I’m drawing parallels and criticizing the way people use chatgpt. I.e. taking it at face value with zero caution and using it as if it’s a primary source of information.
  
  Eesh. The value of a tertiary source is that it cites the secondary sources (which cite the primary). If you strip that out, how’s it different from “some guy told me…”? I think your professors did a bad job of teaching you about how to read sources. Maybe because they didn’t know themselves. :-(
  
  Did you read beyond the sentence that you quoted?
  
  Here:
  
  I can get summarized information about new languages and frameworks really quickly, and then I can dive into the official documentation when I have a high level understanding of the topic at hand.
  
  Example: you’re a junior developer trying to figure out what this JavaScript syntax is const {x} = response?.data. It’s difficult to figure out what destructuring and optional chaining are without knowing what they’re called.
  
  With Chatgpt, you can copy and paste that code and ask “tell me what every piece of syntax is in this line of Javascript.” Then you can check the official docs to learn more.
  
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