Where there's a will there's a way: ChatGPT is used more for science in countries where it is prohibited

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Bao, Honglin, Sun, Mengyi, Teplitskiy, Misha
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Bao, Honglin
Sun, Mengyi
Teplitskiy, Misha
author_facet Bao, Honglin
Sun, Mengyi
Teplitskiy, Misha
contents Regulating AI is a key societal challenge, but which regulation methods are effective is unclear. This study measures the effectiveness of restricting AI services geographically, focusing on ChatGPT. OpenAI restricts ChatGPT access in several countries, including China and Russia. If restrictions are effective, ChatGPT use should be minimal in these countries. We measured use with a classifier based on distinctive word usage found in early versions of ChatGPT, e.g. "delve." We trained the classifier on pre- and post-ChatGPT "polished" abstracts and found it outperformed GPTZero and ZeroGPT on validation sets, including papers with self-reported AI use. Applying the classifier to preprints from Arxiv, BioRxiv, and MedRxiv showed ChatGPT was used in about 12.6% of preprints by August 2023, with 7.7% higher usage in restricted countries. The gap appeared before China's first major legal LLM became widely available. To test the possibility that, due to high demand, use in restricted countries would have been even higher without restrictions, we compared Asian countries with high expected demand (where English is not an official language) and found that use was higher in those with restrictions. ChatGPT use was correlated with higher views and downloads, but not citations or journal placement. Overall, restricting ChatGPT geographically has proven ineffective in science and possibly other domains, likely due to widespread workarounds.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_11583
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Where there's a will there's a way: ChatGPT is used more for science in countries where it is prohibited
Bao, Honglin
Sun, Mengyi
Teplitskiy, Misha
Digital Libraries
Computers and Society
Regulating AI is a key societal challenge, but which regulation methods are effective is unclear. This study measures the effectiveness of restricting AI services geographically, focusing on ChatGPT. OpenAI restricts ChatGPT access in several countries, including China and Russia. If restrictions are effective, ChatGPT use should be minimal in these countries. We measured use with a classifier based on distinctive word usage found in early versions of ChatGPT, e.g. "delve." We trained the classifier on pre- and post-ChatGPT "polished" abstracts and found it outperformed GPTZero and ZeroGPT on validation sets, including papers with self-reported AI use. Applying the classifier to preprints from Arxiv, BioRxiv, and MedRxiv showed ChatGPT was used in about 12.6% of preprints by August 2023, with 7.7% higher usage in restricted countries. The gap appeared before China's first major legal LLM became widely available. To test the possibility that, due to high demand, use in restricted countries would have been even higher without restrictions, we compared Asian countries with high expected demand (where English is not an official language) and found that use was higher in those with restrictions. ChatGPT use was correlated with higher views and downloads, but not citations or journal placement. Overall, restricting ChatGPT geographically has proven ineffective in science and possibly other domains, likely due to widespread workarounds.
title Where there's a will there's a way: ChatGPT is used more for science in countries where it is prohibited
topic Digital Libraries
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.11583