Applied Statistics with ChatGPT: Boons and Banes

When ChatGPT was first launched in November 2022, it opened an era of widely-accessible AI chatbots that have the potential to drastically change how interdisciplinary statisticians train students, collaborate with researchers in various fields, and approach their own statistical research questions. We outline some issues to consider when using ChatGPT in these capacities, and demonstrate the kinds of opportunities and pitfalls this technology presents. Depending on how we use (or ignore) them, these AI chatbots can either empower or frustrate our objectives in professional activities ranging from assigning homework to designing studies to writing research presentations.