Comparing advice on climate policy between academic experts and ChatGPT
Salekpay, Foroogh (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Savin, Ivan (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)

Date:	2024
Abstract:	We compare the results from a recent global expert survey on climate policy with answers to the same survey by the online artificial-intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. Such a study is timely and relevant as many people around the world are likely to use ChatGPT and similar language models to inquire about climate solutions, which in turn might influence public opinion. The comparison provides insights about performance criteria, policy instruments, and use of information from distinct academic disciplines. With a few exceptions, responses by ChatGPT are informative and of high quality. We find that ChatGPT answers questions with less bias than experts from various scientific disciplines. The latter may also be a disadvantage as it seems to weight all the information available equally without accounting well for relevance, which arguably may require human rather than artificial intelligence. On the other hand, experts from distinct disciplines show difference in average responses, with some even expressing opinions inconsistent with objective evidence, meaning there is no consistent and unbiased expert opinion on climate policy. As a new way of synthesizing large amounts of academic and grey literature, ChatGPT can serve policymaking. However, since the procedure that it follows for collecting and summarizing information remains a black box, it is best regarded as a complement rather than a substitute to traditional literature reviews and expert surveys.
Grants:	European Commission 101056891
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Note:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Artificial intelligence ; Chatbot ; Experts ; Climate policy ; Survey ; SDG 13 - Climate Action
Published in:	Ecological economics, Vol. 226 (December 2024) , art. 108352, ISSN 0921-8009

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108352

22 p, 1.5 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) > Environmental and Climate Economics (ECE)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles