Artificial Intelligence for Students

Appropriate Uses of AI

Students can leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for various tasks to enhance their learning experiences. Here are some practical ways students can use AI:

1. Fact-Checking and Critical Thinking:

   • Students can use AI chatbots like ChatGPT to fact-check information. Instead of blindly accepting AI-generated responses, they can critically evaluate and verify the accuracy of answers.

2. Writing and Brainstorming:

   • AI can serve as a brainstorming tool for creative writing. Students can use it to generate ideas, prompts, or keywords. 

3. Language Learning and Translation:

   • AI language models can help students practice foreign languages. AI language models can generate sentences, provide translations, and offer language exercises.

4. Personalized Learning Paths:

   • AI-driven adaptive learning platforms tailor content to individual student needs. These tools recommend relevant resources, quizzes, and exercises based on performance.

5. Automated Proofreading and Grammar Checking:

   • AI can assist students in improving their writing by highlighting grammar errors, suggesting corrections, and enhancing clarity.

Remember that while AI offers exciting possibilities, students should also develop critical thinking skills to evaluate AI-generated content, and use it responsibly.

Inappropriate Uses of AI

Do not use AI applications without the permission of your professor! Here are some inappropriate uses of AI.

1. Using Biased Information:

   • While AI, in theory, is meant to be unbiased, it can only work with the data given, and that data reflects the unconscious bias of its creators, as well as, the AI creators. In several instances, bias has been on stark display in AI tools. One example is AI algorithms sending tech job openings to men but not women. Vet AI output before you use it! Does the AI output you are reading contain biases? If it does, do not use the information!

2. Plagiarism:

   • Plagiarism includes copying someone else's work and misrepresenting it as your own. If you take output from an AI and include it your paper without providing a citation that shows you got the information from an AI, you could be committing plagiarism, which is like cheating.

3. Spreading Fake News:

   • Some of the information AI's are trained on comes from the Internet. You will not be surprised that if the AI you are using pulls sources with mis or disinformation from the Internet, you could have output from an AI that is full of mis or disinformation. Check the accuracy of the output of any AI tool before you use it!

4. Infringing On Copyright:

   • AI tools use content from the internet to generate their output. Generative AI output is not automatically copyrighted in the US. Remember that an AI like ChatGPT may pull content from a copyrighted source or emulate it. For example, if you prompt a text-generating AI tool like ChatGPT to create a song similar to Leonard Cohen's "Anthem", or ask an image-generating AI tool like DALL-E to create an image using the style of a contemporary artist, you may be infringing copyright as AI tools draw from the existing works and reproduce derivatives of them.