Misdirection 4

Beware of ChatGPT - Do not trust and always verify (with apologies to the late Ronald Reagan)

In the Misdirection series, we showed how publications based on the best available evidence and with a long history of publication and updates can be easily tortured and butchered to reveal whatever you want.

Misdirection - Part 2

This is usually done by human hands, i.e. by “fellow” researchers desperate to shore up some highly debatable points in their work with what they see as an authoritative reference.

This time, Eagle Eye has caught the much-vaunted Chat GPT at it. 

The butchery was perpetrated on the Cochrane review Vaccines for preventing influenza in the elderly, which has been running since the summer of 2006 with three updates and one final stabilisation for the reasons explained here.

Eagle Eye asked ChatGPT for the source of sweeping statements made in an official document on the impact of influenza vaccine on all-cause mortality (one of the oldest chestnuts on the branches).

Eagle Eye wrote to us: “Here’s the transcript… It highlights that people with no knowledge/understanding of the topic to be…