ChatGPT and the future of impact assessment

Abstract

Like all other fields, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expected to affect the Impact Assessment (IA) systems worldwide. This study explores the opinions and concerns of international IA experts regarding how ChatGPT may change the future of IA in terms of the benefits and threats it may pose to IA. Twenty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted with IA experts including consultants, regulators, and academics. The majority of the interviewees were of the view that ChatGPT will help reduce the time and effort required for preliminary data collection and will improve the report quality in terms of formatting and sentence structure etc. However, a number of interviewees also feared that the quality of data in reports and public involvement in IA process may be compromised, chances of plagiarism and bias may increase, and the quality of IA graduates produced by academic institutions may deteriorate. The majority of the experts were afraid that ChatGPT will pose more threats to IA compared to the benefits it may offer. The policymakers, while keeping all these concerns in mind, need to formulate laws, rules, and guidelines regarding the use of ChatGPT in IA in their respective areas as suggested by the interviewees. Future studies may be conducted to evaluate and compare the use of different types of chatbots such as Google’s Bard or Microsoft’s Bing in IA. Additionally, AI related laws and guidelines drafted by IA systems across the globe and their implementation may be evaluated a couple of years later.