Use Generative AI

Look for other reliable sources to corroborate the AI tool’s claims. Try to find alternative sources that cover the same topic, or even the original context that a claim came from (these are principles F and T in the SIFT method of evaluating information). If an AI tool is grounded, it may provide links to sources that you can use to verify the claims.

You can prompt a generative AI tool to cite its sources, but some AI tools, like ChatGPT, are known to create very convincing fake citations. 

They may even create citations that have the names of real researchers who study the topic related to your prompt. However, the article named in the citation might not exist or may not be from the journal it cites. These invented citations are instances of AI hallucination.

Here are some steps you can use to confirm that citations are real:

1. Enter the title of the publication (e.g., book title or article title) into the U. of Lethbridge Library search or a search engine like Google and search for the item.

2. If the item does not seem to exist, prompt the AI tool for more details to confirm. For example, “Could you provide an ISBN, ISSN, or DOI for this publication?” These are unique identifiers assigned to publications. 

3. If the reference does indeed exist, ensure you consult the source material to verify that the information provided by the AI tool was summarized correctly.