I recently (in the last month) asked ChatGPT to cite its sources for some scientific data. It gave me completely made up, entirely fabricated citations for academic papers that did not exist.
The behavior you're describing sounds like an older model behavior. When I ask for links to references these days, it searches the internet the gives me links to real papers that are often actually relevant and helpful.
I actually repeated the prompt just now and it actually gave me the correct, opposite response. For those curious, I asked ChatGPT what turned on a gene, and it said Protein X turns on Gene Y as per -fake citation-. Asking today if Protein X turns on Gene Y ChatGPT said there is no evidence, and showed 2 real citations of factors that may turn on Gene Y.
Pretty impressed!
It’s as simple as copying and pasting a link to prove it. If it is actually happening, it would benefit us all to know the facts surrounding it.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6757804f-3a6c-800b-b48c-ffbf144d73...
as just another example, chatgpt said in the Okita paper that they switched media on day 3, when if you read the paper they switched the media on day 8. so not only did it fail to generate the correct reference, it also failed to accurately interpret the contents of a specific paper.
ChatGPT regularly searches and links to sources.