Using AI for Summary Reviews

AI can read, organize, synthesize, and summarize information very quickly, so you might consider leveraging AI tools to help you review dozens of research papers and scholarly articles. But there’s a catch: it can miss important details or come to the wrong conclusion. This guide is designed to help you understand how to use AI overviews effectively.

What are AI Overviews?

If you use Google a lot, you may have already noticed the AI overview feature. It synthesizes and summarizes the answer to your search query. Google can even cite its sources directly.

But even Google’s support page warns: “AI Overviews can and will make mistakes. Think critically about AI Overview responses. Explore results from multiple sources to fact-check important info.”

Misinformation can occur for various reasons, especially when sources lack credibility, contain errors, or are satirical. For instance, Google’s AI Overview once told a user to add glue to pizza to help the cheese “stick better.” The information came from a joke post on Reddit, but Google’s AI was unable to differentiate a joke from a serious recommendation.

When another user asked, “How many rocks shall I eat,” Google’s AI overview responded: “According to geologists at UC Berkely, you should eat at least one small rock per day.” Google further elaborated that “Dr. Joseph Granger suggests eating a serving of gravel, geodes, or pebbles with each meal, or hiding rocks in food like ice cream and peanut butter.”

In this case, the unusual query that led Google’s AI to search for an answer that is most relevant to the input. The recommendation to eat rocks came from a satirical article published by The Onion, once again showing AI’s inability to differentiate fact from fiction.

Can AI help to Summarize Research Papers?

It can! These days, many programs have AI summaries built in. However, be aware that AI can make mistakes when summarizing documents. It can miss important nuances or draw wrong conclusions.

AI summaries can be a good place to start when tackling a new document, but they won’t be checking for facts, so you will still be responsible for verifying information.

Understanding Abstractive and Extractive Summaries

Normally, when asked to summarize key points, generative AI will yield an abstractive summary. This means the tool will synthesize information from multiple sentences and sections to generate a summary in simpler sentences.

However, when AI condenses information from multiple sentences into one, it can generate factual errors. It is important to check abstractive summaries for mistakes.

On the other hand, extractive summaries take sections from a source without paraphrasing. Simple add a restriction to your prompt: “Rely strictly on the provided text. Do not include external information, and do not paraphrase.”

Extractive summaries use statistical calculation to identify phrases and sentences that are most likely to be important. This results in an output that is more faithful to the source’s actual words. Still, even extractive summaries can make mistakes in their calculations and generate inaccurate outputs. Your judgment and critical thinking remain key for proper learning.

Using AI to Review Research Papers

Be intentional when you ask for a summary. If you have a particular focus, mention it. You can also build a prompt to target methods, conclusions, or other elements of a paper. 

Here are some sample prompts: 

• “Name and summarize the method the researchers use.”
• “List up to 5 main claims that match the abstract and conclusion. Do not rephrase.”
• “Summarize the document in paragraph form for easy understanding.”
• “Provide a bulleted list that summarizes the key points of this research paper.”

Conclusion

Although AI can quickly summarize key points, such summaries can be vague, fragmented, confusing, and overall bland. Reading literature is a skill that is useful to develop. 

Think about it this way: research papers are designed to be long because they cover complex ideas that need to be discussed at length. Summarizing eliminates complexity and nuance for the sake of speed. Relying too much on quick synopses can be detrimental to your thorough understanding. AI is a useful tool to help you get started in your studies, but depth and personal development can only come from your own critical thinking and hard work.

References

Google. (n.d.). Find information in faster & easier ways with AI Overviews in Google Search. https://theonion.com/geologists-recommend-eating-at-least-one-small-rock-per-1846655112/

The Onion. (April 13, 2021). Geologists recommend eating at least one small rock per day. https://theonion.com/geologists-recommend-eating-at-least-one-small-rock-per-1846655112/