Field diffusion · General science · Computer science

Nature survey captures early post-ChatGPT researcher expectations for AI in science

A Nature survey of more than 1,600 researchers on AI use, expected importance, and research-integrity concerns.

Summary

Nature surveyed more than 1,600 researchers in 2023 about AI in science, capturing early expectations that AI tools would become central to research and concerns about bias, fraud, irreproducibility, misinformation, plagiarism, and peer review capacity.

AI role

Surveyed researchers about machine-learning and generative-AI tools as aids for data processing, computation, writing, coding, and research ideation.

Narrative role

This historical-gap backfill anchors the field-diffusion timeline near the first post-ChatGPT wave, before later 2025-2026 surveys measured broader routine adoption.

Caveat

Nature notes that respondents interested in AI were more likely to answer, so the survey is useful as an early sentiment marker but is not representative of all scientists.