Accuracy
Generative AI gathers information and data from a variety of sources but does not check them for credibility or accuracy which can led to inaccurate results. There are also some people who are deliberately feeding inaccurate data into AI that can also skew results and answers which is why you should always double-check the information AI gives you.
Plagiarism
Since AI gathers information from various sources and often does not provide those sources to the user, the user could inadvertently be committing plagiarism by rephrasing or summarizing their ideas without giving them due credit. It is can also be considered plagiarism to use AI to write or partially write an essay or assignment and not disclose this in the References or Works Cited page. Check with your professor about using and citing AI for their class.
Hallucinations
Gen AI has been known to offer false information that can be indistinguishable from factual data from an outside source. Generative AIs like ChatGPT will always answer a question whether they can find the right answer or not. They will give the most probable answer, even though that answer may not be factually accurate.
Bias
Because Gen AI aggregates information, it is good at presenting the main points of a topic but could repeat certain biases from sources. For example, Gen AIs like ChatGPT do not evaluate sources for racism, sexism or other stereotyping and may repeat stereotypes from sources as though they are facts.
Privacy
Anytime you use AI, you are sharing information that can be used later by the AI. This has led to privacy concerns among universities and businesses. It also raises questions of ethics when using AI in research involving human subjects. Do not share any personal or private data with an AI that you do not want generally available on the internet.
Cannot Evaluate or Analyze
The goal of AI is to gather and summarize data, so it cannot help you analyze and evaluate sources or topics. It may appear to analyze and evaluate, but it is repeating the evaluations and analyses of others; it cannot create new analyses.
New or Niche Information/Research is Hidden
AI's goal is to get a "big picture" of the data so if you are researching a new topic or a very specific part of a subject, AI may not be useful since it may lack the data or will ignore more niche topics to cover the main points. This can also mean that is misses new breakthroughs or unique perspectives.
Does not Create New Ideas
Similar to how AI cannot evaluate or analyze, it cannot create. New ideas must still come from the user. AI could provide a list of ideas others have made, but cannot create new ones.
Does not Search Everything
Even though AI may be useful, it does not have access to all published research. In fact, a lot of academic material (books, journal articles, research reports, etc.) is inaccessible to AI due to publisher paywalls, so users relying on AI could be missing out on a lot of valuable information.