Mushtaq Bilal, PhD Profile picture
Nov 20 13 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Finding relevant papers for literature review takes a lot of time.

So, MIT researchers built Undermind, an AI-powered search engine.

It can generate well-researched overviews on any topic and is 10-50 times better than Google Scholar.

Here's how to use it:
1. Go to undermind[.]ai and sign up for a free account.
2. Once you've logged in, this is how Undermind would look like.

Type in the topic of your research project. You can be as vague as possible.

Undermind will you a brief overview about your topic. Then it will ask you to narrow down your topic.
3. Once you've narrowed down your topic, type in your question, and press Enter. Undermind will reword your question.

Then scroll down a little and click on "Submit Deep Search."

Undermind will take 3-5 minutes to compile a comprehensive answer to your question.
4. Once it's done, Undermind will give you a detailed overview of the project with citations to published papers.

Hover your cursor over a citation and it will show you the relevent article.
5. Undermind will also show you different categories of papers relevant to your topic.

This can help you a lot in framing your project.
6. Undermind also has an option for timeline of published papers and the citation network.

I didn't find the user interface of the timeline very helpful. But I am sure this will improve in the future.
7. If you scroll all the way down, Undermind will give you a list of references.

You can enable abstracts and it will show you abstracts of all the papers in the list.

It will also give you a score of how relevant a given paper is to your topic.
8. You can also ask it to write brief review articles on a given topic.

After you have run a search, ask it to give you a review article.

These articles can be a great way to familiarize yourself with new topics.
Want to supercharge your academic writing with AI?

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9. Undermind will save all your searches.

To look at your previous searches, simply click on "History."
10. And here's the paper on how Undermind works: A screenshot of the first page of the paper titled "Benchmarking the Undermind Search Assistant" by Thomas Hartke and Joshua Ramette.
Found this thread on Undermind helpful?

1. Scroll to the top and repost the first post to share it with your friends.

2. Follow me for more tutorials on how to use AI apps for academic purposes.

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More from @MushtaqBilalPhD

Nov 14
Nature recently asked me if AI could conduct a literature review.

I wrote 1,000-word piece to think through it.

The article that came out yesterday contains a few quotes.

Thought I'd share my detailed answers here:

Can current AI tools produce an accurate literature review?
I am not sure if the current generation of AI tools can produce accurate reviews of scientific literature autonomously without any supervision by a qualified scientist.

That said, AI tools can certainly make your review and writing processes efficient.

Let’s say, you are working on a literature review and you come across a certain article. You want to find out studies supporting and refuting the claims of that particular article.

You can do it manually, which will take a lot of time.
Or, you can do it with the help of an app called Scite. You run a paper through Scite, and it will give a breakdown of citation statements supporting or contrasting the claims of a given research paper.

Most AI tools that claim to do literature review are directed at undergraduate or college students.

They can give you a basic writeup at the level of an undergraduate student pulls an all-nighter and comes up with the main points of a few papers. That’s about it.

If you are looking for penetrating and original insights, AI tools are not there yet.
Read 6 tweets
Nov 1
Google has launched "Learn About" — an AI tool designed specially for students and teachers.

You can use it to create interactive articles and guides on any topic.

Here's how to use it:
1. Go to learning•google•com/experiments/learn-about

(If you are outside the US, you will need to use a VPN.)

Type in your topic and it will give you:

• Introduction to the topic
• Relevant terms
• Topic's significance
• Suggested topics (on the left)
2. It creates interactive articles.

You can simply click on any concept and it will explain that in detail. Really great to fall down different rabbit holes.

It will also create short quizes so you can test yourself.
Read 7 tweets
Oct 31
Don't ask ChatGPT for any references or citations. It generates fake references to papers that don't even exist.

Instead, use Scite — an AI-powered app designed for researchers.

It answers your questions with references to real, published papers.

Here's how to use it:
1. Go to scite[.]ai and sign up for an account.

Scite gives you a 7-day free trial.
2. Click on "Assistant" and it will open you AI-powered research assistant.

Type in your question in the search bar.

Scite will answer your question with citations to published sources.
Read 6 tweets
Oct 30
Limitation of Google Scholar: You can only look up articles with keywords. It doesn't work if you paste a sentence or a paragraph.

Sourcely is an AI-powered app that lets you look up papers using whole paragraphs.

Here's how to use it: A screenshot of a Google Scholar search result showing that it couldn't find any articles related to a given paragraph.
1. Go to sourcely[.]net and click on "Find Sources Now."

Log in to your account or sign up if you don't have one already.
2. Paste a couple of paragraphs and click on "Find Sources."

Sourcely will give you a list of relevant sources.
Read 8 tweets
Oct 29
ChatGPT generates fake references to papers that don't exist.

So, researchers at Stanford built Storm.

It's an AI-powered app that generates well-researched articles with references to published sources.

Here's how to use it:
1. Go to storm[.]genie[.]stanford[.]edu and click on "Get Started."

Create a account and log in.
2. In the search box, enter the topic you want to generate an article on.

Under the search box, type in the purpose of your article and what you want to achieve with it.

Then click on the right arrow and Storm will start researching the topic.
Read 11 tweets
Oct 26
This post calling for a ban on Benedict Anderson's book "Imagined Communities" went viral recently.

Here's why you should read it:

It's the single most important book if you want to understand modern identity, nationalism, and the world we live in today.

Thread: A screenshot of a tweet calling for a ban on Benedict Anderson's book "Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism."
The most important chapter in "Imagined Communities" is titled "Cultural Roots" and is only 27 pages long.

Anderson starts by talking about communities that preceded modern nations. He calls them religious or classical communities.
A classical community is oriented vertically.

On the top is God who ordains the monarch (king/queen) to rule over subjects.

Subject are not related to each but every subject is related to the monarch because s/he is the ruler. A graphic showing a vertically oriented classical community with God on top, then monarch, and then subjects at the bottom.
Read 27 tweets

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