Will artificial intelligence challenge human in innovative works?-- A perspective in environmental research

Innovation has long been regarded as a uniquely human capability; however, the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence, particularly large language models such as ChatGPT, is increasingly challenging this assumption. Taking research in environmental field as an example, this work aims to evaluate the innovation capability of ChatGPT by using it to predict future research hotspots. Fed with 20 years of previous literature from a professional environmental journal, the optimal ChatGPT setup correctly predicted 80% of the hotspots in the next year, but the correct predictions highly relied on repeating existed keywords. Interestingly, sometimes it correctly predicted new words beyond the history hotspots list. The new words were found meaningful and hard to be deducted by existed keywords, which is seen as a signal for self-innovation. In conclusion, ChatGPT seems unable to substitute human beings in scientific innovation in its current state, but the capability it exhibited and the following ethics problems deserve to be carefully concerned in advance.