Leveraging Large Language Models for Literature Review Tasks - A Case Study Using ChatGPT

Literature reviews constitute an indispensable component of research endeavors; however, they often prove laborious and time-intensive. This study explores the potential of ChatGPT, a prominent large-scale language model, to facilitate the literature review process. By contrasting outcomes from a manual literature review with those achieved using ChatGPT, we ascertain the accuracy of ChatGPT's responses. Our findings indicate that ChatGPT aids researchers in swiftly perusing vast and heterogeneous collections of scientific publications, enabling them to extract pertinent information related to their research topic with an overall accuracy of 70%. Moreover, we demonstrate that ChatGPT offers a more economical and expeditious means of achieving this level of accuracy compared to human researchers. Nevertheless, we conclude that although ChatGPT exhibits promise in generating a rapid and cost-effective general overview of a subject, it presently falls short of generating a comprehensive literature overview requisite for scientific applications. Lastly, we propose avenues for future research to enhance the performance and utility of ChatGPT as a literature review assistant.