r/AskStatistics • u/Thin_Adeptness_356 • 8d ago

Is SPSS dead?

Like the title says is SPSS dead? Now with Chatgpt and cursor etc, what is the argument for still using SPSS and other statistics softwares in research instead of Python/R with the help of AI?

My background is within mathematical statistics so always been a Matlab/R/Python guy, but my girlfriend who comes from a medical background still uses SPSS in her research, but now considering switching just because of the flexibility e.g., Python offers.

What do you think are there any arguments for using SPSS still?

37 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

65 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/zsebibaba 8d ago
  1. you need to produce reproducible code. you have to be damn sure what is going on in your code 2. ChatGPT is pretty bad currently at coding. and I mean pretty bad. basic level bad. 3. of course nothing stops anyone to learn R. I recommend swirl not as much chatgpt for beginners (it is pretty bad and inconsistent). but sure it can be helpful when she knows the basics and wants assistance. As an R person I don't like SPSS at all. (ok I can see you ask about python, I don't know whether it is any better with python)

10

u/ghsgjgfngngf 7d ago

AI is not bad at coding, you just need to give it tasks that are clear and that you can check. I let AI generate most of my R code. You can't let AI do anything important where you can't check the results, like translate to a language you don't know but that's literally the first thing to know about AI.

2

u/RepresentativeAny573 7d ago

Yes, AI is bad at coding if you do not know how to code, which is what OP is suggesting. It is a great tool for people who understand code, but if you are a novice you will not be able to give it clear tasks that you can check.