user27148: See Ban ChatGPT network-wide for reference.
Briefly, ChatGPT is a language model that uses the statistics of words in a training dataset to generate grammatically correct responses to plain language prompts.
That means you could take a Stack Exchange question, put it into ChatGPT, and with no effort have a lengthy text answer generated.
The main problems with ChatGPT for a site like this are:

Attribution to ChatGPT is required, but most people using the content ignore this.

Nothing ensures the output is accurate, it's just based on a statistical model that can go horribly wrong at times. Worse, even wrong output is written in a way that can seem accurate/knowledgeable. ChatGPT is very good at "faking" answers, which means it takes far more human effort to identify bad ChatGPT answers, while it takes almost no effort to post one.

Nothing prevents ChatGPT from plagiarizing. It does not reference the material it is trained on, and very easily could lift entire passages from specific items in sufficiently niche areas.

Even if the sentences it produces are not lifted, ChatGPT doesn't reference the sources used, which is a requirement for most answers here.

No value is added. If someone wants to get an AI answer to their question, they can just go to ChatGPT and ask it themselves. Posting a ChatGPT answer is not really any different than pasting a question into Google and copying a list of the first several entries. If someone wants the first 5 results to a particular Google search they can just use Google.


For simplicity, I recommend we simply ban this content here. Moderators here have already removed ChatGPT-sourced content that infringes on existing site rules, and I doubt there will be many ChatGPT posts that meet our other standards, so this policy change won't really affect much except to make it clear and avoid any argument about what is and isn't acceptable.

user27148: Given the score on the post here and the lack of any expressed dissent, I think we can presume until further notice that the policy on Biology.SE is against AI-generated answers.
Personally, my plan will be to delete this content with a comment linking to this post, and I'd ask users to flag "in need of moderator intervention" for content they suspect is generated (please explain your suspicions if possible). I don't expect it will be necessary to suspend users unless they're posting copious quantities of generated content (for example, if it appears they are using scripts to directly submit content) or ignoring warnings - this is pretty much the same way we handle other problem content besides blatant spam or egregiously offensive material.
I think it's better that we not discuss too much openly what strategies we'll use to detect this content for now, and for users that are unsure I wouldn't worry about seeking it out - you can also flag unreferenced answers simply for being unreferenced and downvote wrong answers as you've always done.

27148: <p>See <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/384396/ban-chatgpt-network-wide">Ban ChatGPT network-wide</a> for reference.</p>
<p>Briefly, ChatGPT is a language model that uses the statistics of words in a training dataset to generate grammatically correct responses to plain language prompts.</p>
<p>That means you could take a Stack Exchange question, put it into ChatGPT, and with no effort have a lengthy text answer generated.</p>
<p>The main problems with ChatGPT for a site like this are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Attribution to ChatGPT is required, but most people using the content ignore this.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Nothing ensures the output is accurate, it's just based on a statistical model that can go horribly wrong at times. Worse, even wrong output is written in a way that can <em>seem</em> accurate/knowledgeable. ChatGPT is very good at &quot;faking&quot; answers, which means it takes far more human effort to identify bad ChatGPT answers, while it takes almost no effort to post one.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Nothing prevents ChatGPT from plagiarizing. It does not reference the material it is trained on, and very easily could lift entire passages from specific items in sufficiently niche areas.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Even if the sentences it produces are not lifted, ChatGPT doesn't reference the sources used, which is a requirement for most answers here.</p>
</li>
<li><p>No value is added. If someone wants to get an AI answer to their question, they can just go to ChatGPT and ask it themselves. Posting a ChatGPT answer is not really any different than pasting a question into Google and copying a list of the first several entries. If someone wants the first 5 results to a particular Google search they can just <em>use Google</em>.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>For simplicity, I recommend we simply ban this content here. Moderators here have already removed ChatGPT-sourced content that infringes on existing site rules, and I doubt there will be many ChatGPT posts that meet our other standards, so this policy change won't really affect much except to make it clear and avoid any argument about what is and isn't acceptable.</p>
 27148: <p>Given the score on the post here and the lack of any expressed dissent, I think we can presume until further notice that the policy on Biology.SE is against AI-generated answers.</p>
<p>Personally, my plan will be to delete this content with a comment linking to this post, and I'd ask users to flag &quot;in need of moderator intervention&quot; for content they suspect is generated (please explain your suspicions if possible). I don't expect it will be necessary to suspend users unless they're posting copious quantities of generated content (for example, if it appears they are using scripts to directly submit content) or ignoring warnings - this is pretty much the same way we handle other problem content besides blatant spam or egregiously offensive material.</p>
<p>I think it's better that we not discuss too much openly what strategies we'll use to detect this content for now, and for users that are unsure I wouldn't worry about seeking it out - you can also flag unreferenced answers simply for being unreferenced and downvote wrong answers as you've always done.</p>
