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26 Med., Health Care & Phil. 1 (2023)

handle is hein.journals/medhcph26 and id is 1 raw text is: 

Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy (2023) 26:1-2
https://doi.org/1 0.1007/s 11019-023-10136-0


ChatGPT: evolution or revolution?


Bert Gordijn' - Henk ten Have2'3


Published online: 19 January 2023
©The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023


In the last few years large language models (LLMs) have
inspired an  increasingly sophisticated academic debate
about their ethical implications (see e.g., Weidinger et al.
2021). With OpenAI's  release of ChatGPT, on November
30th, 2022, this discussion has now moved mainstream. The
new chatbot was released by way of research preview ... to
get users' feedback and learn about its strengths and weak-
nesses (OpenAI, 2022). In the following week more than
a million users tried out the new chatbot (Vallance, 2022).
The authors of this editorial could not resist the temptation
either. So, we asked ChatGPT to write a column about con-
temporary Greece  and its ambivalent relationship with its
glorious ancient past in the style of NYT Op-Ed columnist
Thomas  Friedman.


Chatting   with   ChatGPT

After a couple of seconds, the chatbot begins: As I wander
through the streets of modern Athens, I can't help but feel
a sense of ambivalence about the city's relationship with its
ancient past ... (answer by ChatGPT on 19 Dec. 2022). It
continues with what turns out to be a well-designed little
piece of writing. The language is fluent, has a natural feel,
and is pleasant to read. Now, another prompt is given: Turn
this writing into a Shakespearean sonnet. ChatGPT writes:
Amidst  the ancient ruins that lay scattered here, I feel a
sense of ambivalence within ... (answer by ChatGPT  on
19 Dec. 2022). Playing around like this is great fun, and the
performance of ChatGPT   is impressive. Yet, engaging fur-
ther with the chatbot it soon becomes clear that it has certain
shortcomings as well. It does make odd factual mistakes, for


Bert Gordijn
bert.gordijn@dcu.ie

Institute of Ethics, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA
Anahuac University, Mexico City, Mexico


example. It can also be repetitive, recycling phrases from
previous answers in a slightly annoying manner. Neverthe-
less, it is hard to suppress a feeling of awe when engaging
with the chatbot for the first time.


Questions

Soon after the release of the new chatbot, all kinds of ques-
tions about its implications were raised. How is this technol-
ogy going to affect the role of essay assignments in academic
education (Stokel-Walker 2022)?  Are software engineers
going to lose their jobs, as these Al systems get better at
writing code (Castelvecchi 2022)? What about the effects
on knowledge  workers more generally (Krugman 2022)? In
this editorial we develop a few preliminary thoughts about
whether the fast progress of LLM  technology means  that
editors of academic journals must now come up with new
editorial policies specifically designed to address the chal-
lenges that LLMs  pose to academic  publishing. Whether
one believes this to be the case partly depends on one's take
on their evolutionary or revolutionary character.


Evolution

One  way  of looking at ChatGPT   is to regard it as just
another tool in the ever-growing toolbox available to aca-
demics when  conducting research and writing papers. One
could for example deploy it as a search engine that answers
questions directly instead of only referring to sources where
one must look for the answers oneself. Moreover, those who
fear a blank page might deploy ChatGPT to provide a very
first draft of a new piece of writing. One does only have to
come  up with a good prompt, which should even be feasible
for someone suffering from writer's block. Next, one could
imagine engaging the chatbot as an interlocutor in a brain-
storm session of sorts. However, ChatGPT  has significant
limitations as well. It sometimes gives incorrect answers,
can be overly sensitivity to arbitrary differences in prompt


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