A tool that has helped to transform modern social-science research is under threat thanks to artificial intelligence. Researchers are warning that a wave of chatbots impersonating people could corrupt or invalidate the online surveys that power thousands of studies every year. They are urging the companies that run the surveys to do more to address the problem. Since the early 2000s, online surveys that allow people to participate in research studies from the comfort of their own desktops have been used in fields such as ecology, psychology, economics and politics. They have become 'essential infrastructure' of the social sciences, says Felix Chopra, a behavioural economist at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management in Germany, who uses such surveys in his research. People get paid to participate in online surveys ' anywhere from pennies to US$100 or more per hour. And an industry was created to administer the surveys and manage vast pools of potential respondents. Between...
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