ChatGPT sourcing still sucks.
A week ago, I asked ChatGPT to evaluate its performance under the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.
It wasn’t pretty.
The revolutionary artificial intelligence model said it does not identify sources unless the information is directly provided within the prompt.
That’s unethical. And dangerous.
In the non-fiction world, the SPJ Code governs. It says: Identify sources clearly. The public is entitled to as much information as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources.
People need to know where info comes from just much as they need to know the sources of their water or food. During a pandemic, if you consume unreliable information about vaccinations, you might as well be drinking poisoned water. If you can tell what’s real, you stand a better chance of staying alive.
Suddenly this week, as if by magic, sourcing started appearing in my ChatGPT feed. At the end of some entries, a blue link in parenthesis cited a source. Unlike before, you don’t have to ask for it.
The sourcing still isn’t as good as Perplexity’s or Wikipedia’s. But it’s a visible step in the right direction.
GPT said it rolled out the blue parenthesis weeks ago in response to “demand.” Can’t say why the feature didn’t start showing up…
