What if ChatGPT generates quantitative research data? A case study in tourism

Purpose This study aims to explore whether Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (ChatGPT) can produce quantitative data sets for researchers who could behave unethically through data fabrication. Design/methodology/approach A two-stage case study related to the field of tourism was conducted, and ChatGPT (v.3.5.) was asked to respond to the first questionnaire on behalf of 400 participants and the second on behalf of 800 participants. The artificial intelligence (AI)-generated data sets’ quality was statistically tested via descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and Harman's single-factor test. Findings The results revealed that ChatGPT could respond to the questionnaires as the number of participants at the desired sample size level and could present the generated data sets in a table format ready for analysis. It was also observed that ChatGPT's responses were systematical, and it created a statistically ideal data set. However, it was noted that the data produced high correlations among the observed variables, the measurement model did not achieve sufficient goodness of fit and the issue of common method bias emerged. The conclusion reached is that ChatGPT does not or cannot yet generate data of suitable quality for advanced-level statistical analyses. Originality/value This study shows that ChatGPT can provide quantitative data to researchers attempting to fabricate data sets unethically. Therefore, it offers a new and significant argument to the ongoing debates about the unethical use of ChatGPT. Besides, a quantitative data set generated by AI was statistically examined for the first time in this study. The results proved that the data produced by ChatGPT is problematic in certain aspects, shedding light on several points that journal editors should consider during the editorial processes.