What is actually going on when you use an AI-based tool? Click on the link below to check out this three-minute explanation from Hal Daumé III, Professor of Computer Science at University of Maryland, Institute Director for the Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS).

How AI Works

Explore Different Types of AI

While some AI-based tools might come to your mind right away, there are a lot of different tools out there with a lot of different uses. As you evaluate how to use these tools responsibly in your academic work, it is useful to keep the breadth of potential uses in mind. You or your instructor might want to use one kind of tool for a certain situation but not others.

Read through the sections below to explore some potential applications of AI. Please note that this list is not comprehensive or an endorsement of any particular tool used in the examples.

Some tools will give you writing or paraphrasing suggestions (e.g. Grammarly, QuillBot), and other tools will generate new text or code based on a prompt from you (e.g. Bing AI, Claude, ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini).

Some tools will generate unique images for you, based on a text prompt (e.g. DALL-E, Adobe Firefly, Midjourney).

Some tools will use written text to generate spoken language or to create talking video avatars (e.g. Synthesia, PlayHT).

Some tools will help you find research articles or links (e.g. Bing AI, Elicit)

Take a closer look at ChatGPT

Here are four facts about ChatGPT that will be helpful as you think about its uses.

1. ChatGPT is developed by a company called OpenAI, based in San Francisco, CA. Their stated mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence—AI systems that are generally smarter than humans—benefits all of humanity.” Chat GPT is just one of OpenAI’s products, which also include DALL-E, the text-to-image generator. OpenAI begun as a nonprofit in 2015 then became a for-profit company in 2019. They received investments from different sources, including $1 billion from Microsoft, which uses the same AI model that powers ChatGPT and DALL-E in for Bing AI.
2. The “GPT” in ChatGPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. Hover over each word to learn more about its meaning.
3. It can generate new text for any written prompt and is designed to provide human-like conversational interactions. Some examples of things it can do include: write an essay, generate a definition, de-bug or write functional code, suggest tourist destinations, make up recipes based on a collection of ingredients, craft a love letter, etc.
4. It produces unique responses each time, and you can tweak its responses because it remembers the whole chat conversation. You can instruct it to respond to you in different ways (e.g. “please reply to me like I’m in 2nd grade”).

Using AI carefully and thoughtfully

Alongside the exciting possibilities of these AI-based tools, there are a good number of things to be careful about as you assess if and when you want to use them. Start thinking through major considerations by clicking on the link below for this two-minute overview video from Katie Shilton, Associate Professor in the College of Information Studies and Co-Director of the BS in Social Data Science at University of Maryland, Co-PI of The Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS).

AI Concerns

AI & Accuracy

Can you trust that the information you receive from these AI-based tools is correct? Not without double checking. Many chatbots such as ChatGPT were designed to produce content that seems realistic, so they will produce inaccurate content with the same level of confidence as accurate content and it’s up to you to determine which is which. You’ll need to employ a variety of strategies to double check information before assuming it is correct. You’ll learn more about how to do this in the following section.

Copyright and labor

Where does the content come from? Because machine learning takes huge inputs of data sets, many models use information from the internet in their training. Artists and authors have criticized AI-based tools for using their work without compensation or credit. If an AI-based image generator can produce work in the style of a certain artist, should that be seen as stealing, or paying homage?

For more on copyright and labor questions, check out an analysis of the websites being used to train AI tools, read about the experiences of content moderators, explore the question of is DALL-E’s art borrowed or stolen, and read about comedian Sarah Silverman and other artists and authors suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement.

Bias

While it may be tempting to think of an output from an AI-based tool as neutral when it comes to bias, that is not the case. Since machine learning models are trained on real world datasets, and since the world contains bias, it is safe to assume that outputs from these models may replicate or even exacerbate biases we see in the world around us.

Learn about bias in AI: the gender shades video walks through a study of how well popular face-recognition software identifies people of different genders and skin types.

Security and privacy

It is safe to assume that — in some way or another — any information you put into a AI-based tool is being used to further train the machine learning model. If you choose to use these tools, you’ll want to make sure you’re never putting personal or secure information about you or anyone else in your chats. You should also read through any user agreements if you sign up to use a particular service and make your own decision if you are comfortable agreeing to the terms. If one of your class projects requires the use of a particular technology that you do not wish to create an account for, you can ask your instructor for an alternative way to complete the assignment.

Source

“AI and Information Literacy ” by the University of Maryland Libraries and the Teaching and Learning Transformation Center. is liscensed with a  CC BY-NC 4.0