Artificial Intelligence as a Linguistic Source: Focus on Affecting Factors

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) nowadays represents one of the important sources for getting knowledge. One of the aspects of knowledge is related to linguistics which is the systematic study of language. AI can be employed as an essential device for getting information about linguistics and its branches. However, AI may have some weaknesses that affect its performance while supporting users with knowledge. This study aims to investigate the factors that may affect the process of searching the information and the accuracy of the information supported by AI. The study is qualitative in which the data are collected from AI. The researcher collected the data from AI by making conversations with chat GPT. Then the researcher took screenshots of the conversations with chat GPT 3.5 and 4.0 versions. The study found that the background of different users affects AI answering the questions. Moreover, the study found that the way of formulating the sentence and the content of the question raised by users affect the given information by AI.  The study concludes that AI does not always support accurate answers but, it may be affected by different factors. Thus, it is important to take into consideration these affecting factors by researchers while using AI as a linguistic source.