Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Feature
  • Published:

Science communication with generative AI

Nature Human Behaviour volume 8, pages 625–627 (2024)Cite this article

Generative AI tools can quickly translate or summarize large volumes of complex information. This technology could revolutionize the way that we communicate science, but there are many reasons for caution. We asked six experts about the potential and pitfalls of generative AI for science communication.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Wang, H. et al. Nature 620, 47–60 (2023).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Wagner, G., Lukyanenko, R. & Paré, G. J. Inf. Technol. 37, 209–226 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Yang, Y., Youyou, W. & Uzzi, B. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117, 10762–10768 (2020).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Messeri, L. & Crockett, M. J. Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific research. Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07146-0 (2024).

  5. Ghosh, S. & Caliskan, A. ChatGPT perpetuates gender bias in machine translation and ignores non-gendered pronouns: findings across Bengali and five other low-resource languages. In AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (eds Rossi, F. et al.) 901–912 (AAAI/ACM AIES 2023).

  6. Longino, H. E. Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry (Princeton Univ. Press, 1990).

  7. Harding, S. Centen. Rev. 36, 437–470 (1992).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Nakadai, R., Nakawake, Y. & Shibasaki, S. Nat. Hum. Behav. 7, 1804–1805 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Bender, E. M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A. & Shmitchell, S. On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? In Proc. 2021 ACM Conf. on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 610–623 (ACM, 2021).

  10. Crockett, M. J. & Messeri, L. Preprint at OSF, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/4zdx9 (2023).

  11. Conroy, G. Nature 622, 234–236 (2023).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Ou, M. & Ho, S. S. Public Underst. Sci. 33, 241–259 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Ho, S. S., Scheufele, D. A. & Corley, E. A. Sci. Commun. 33, 167–200 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Ho, S. S. et al. Environ. Commun. 13, 457–471 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Shin, D., Rasul, A. & Fotiadis, A. Internet Res. 32, 1214–1234 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Cao, Y. et al. (2023). Assessing cross-cultural alignment between ChatGPT and human societies: an empirical study. In Proc. First Workshop on Cross-Cultural Considerations in NLP (C3NLP), 53–67 (ACL, 2023).

  17. Draxler, F. et al. (2023). The AI ghostwriter effect: when users do not perceive ownership of AI-generated text but self-declare as authors. In ACM Trans. Computer–Human Interaction, vol. 31 (eds Höök, E. & Hornbæk, K.) 25 (ACM, 2023).

Download references

Acknowledgements

S.S.H. is part of the research programme DesCartes, which is supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

    Amanda Alvarez

  2. The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Aylin Caliskan & Jevin West

  3. Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    M. J. Crockett

  4. University Center for Human Values, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    M. J. Crockett

  5. Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Shirley S. Ho

  6. Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Lisa Messeri

  7. Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Jevin West

Authors
  1. Amanda Alvarez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Aylin Caliskan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. M. J. Crockett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Shirley S. Ho
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Lisa Messeri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Jevin West
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Amanda Alvarez, Aylin Caliskan, M. J. Crockett, Shirley S. Ho, Lisa Messeri or Jevin West.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

J.W. is on the board of Consensus.app. The other authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Alvarez, A., Caliskan, A., Crockett, M.J. et al. Science communication with generative AI. Nat Hum Behav 8, 625–627 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01846-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01846-3

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing