Guidelines for Using AI

Some of you are probably familiar already with ChatGPT and similar AI (artificial intelligence) tools that have the ability to produce high-quality writing automatically on any subject. If you aren’t, you will be soon. They are amazing.

But they create all kinds of problems for a class like this where students are supposed to write. How can I evaluate your writing when I can’t tell what you wrote and what was written by a bot? How can I penalize plagiarism (which I have to do out of fairness for those who don’t cheat) when it can be very hard to distinguish computer-generated text from “real” writing? Is using AI even plagiarism at all, since you’re taking words and ideas from a machine, not from another person?

Every teacher and professor everywhere in the world will be experimenting with this new technology and trying out new policies and methods until we figure out how best to integrate it into our courses. I’m trying a number of approaches this semester, but my goals will always be fairness to everyone whether they use AI or not and to be as clear as possible about my grading methods and expectations.

In this class you are permitted to use AI in any way you choose but you are not required to use it; it is optional. In many cases, in fact, you may find it easier to do the assignments yourself without it. But I know many of you will use it, and I don’t want you to feel you have to hide it from me as if you were cheating. The goal is for all of us to learn to use it effectively. I hope you’ll talk with me about your experiences using AI, how it works for you, if it’s worth the trouble, what it does well and not so well. Help me learn!

What is AI?

There are many forms of artificial intelligence (AI), but the ones we’re concerned about here are called “language models,” which simulate human speech and writing. The best-known of these is called ChatGPT, produced by a company called OpenAI, but others are on the way from well-known companies like Microsoft and Google. With ChatGPT (the only one I’ve used) you can enter a question or a prompt and it will return an answer. You can “chat” with it, argue with it, ask it to elaborate, and ask for examples or for more information on anything it told you. You can also give it specific instructions for the output you want (“Give me a 500-word college-level essay on the following topic . . .”) The reasons are obvious why this is concerning to people like me who assign college writing!

ChatGPT works by “scraping” the Internet of content and assembling a huge database of language to draw from. Incredibly, it doesn’t actually know the meaning of the words it generates—it doesn’t understand or think anything—but it simulates writing by choosing the most likely words to follow the ones it just wrote. It’s like a supercharged version of the text prediction and autocorrect features on your phone. The writing has no real thought behind it, but it’s a very convincing simulation and can help humans who do understand the words come up with new ideas and learn new things.

How can I access AI? Is it free?

For the time being, ChatGPT is easy to access and free to use. Go to https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt and click Try ChatGPT. You’ll have to create an account or log in with a Google or Microsoft account. There is a premium level of ChatGPT you can pay for, but I don’t use it. You may have some trouble sometimes getting the site to work, as it tends to get overloaded with users. Keep trying. Other AI services exist, too (Google Bard, Jasper, Microsoft Bing). Some are free and others are subscription-only. I don’t know anything about those yet. It won’t be long before this technology is built-in on all our search engines and office software and comes preloaded on new phones. It’s only going to get easier to access with time.

Am I allowed to use AI on class assignments?

This is the question of the year, and the answer will depend on your instructor. Always make sure you know your professor’s rules on using AI and follow them carefully. Rules will differ greatly from class to class: some will prohibit it, others will require it.

In this class, you are permitted to use AI in any way you choose. I will not consider AI-generated text to be plagiarism, and I will not penalize it or treat it as academic dishonesty. I will grade the work you submit to me on its own merits using the scoring rubrics I provide in advance.

But here’s the thing: AI will not be very good at doing my assignments. I’ll be looking for qualities in the writing and content that only a person can provide: insight and originality (AI’s don’t think or create); use of evidence from real sources, especially the ones I assign, and from class lectures (AI won’t have access to most of these materials and has a bad habit of making up fake sources); and personal opinion and experience (AI isn’t a person). In short, you can get credit for a paper written with AI assistance but won’t get a very good grade on it unless you make additions of your own.

How can AI help me with my assignments?

Well, obviously, you could just paste in the prompt and see what you get, but that’s probably the worst way to use it. The key is to use AI as a tool and as part of your writing process:

  • Use it to brainstorm ideas: “I’m supposed to write about how Columbus Day has become a controversial holiday. What could I say about that?” If it comes back with something you like, ask it to elaborate on that idea.
  • Ask it to evaluate your thesis: “Here’s what I plan to say. Is this a good thesis?” You could also ask for ideas on what kinds of evidence you should provide to support that thesis.
  • Ask it to suggest a structure or outline for your essay, then elaborate and add details and examples in your own words.
  • Once you have a draft, ask the AI how to improve it: “Here’s my essay. How can I make it better?” You can copy and paste your full text, and it will offer suggestions for improvement. (I did a trial run of this, and it gave the “student” the exact same advice I would have.)
  • You can also paste in a draft of your essay and ask the bot to proofread it. Just say “Proofread this:” and paste in your text. It will correct spelling, grammar, and fix a lot of problems in the style and wording without changing your argument or organization. This is a great way to improve writing errors that would otherwise count off.
  • Ask it to translate your paper into Latin. OK, this isn’t useful, but it’s really fun! You can instantly translate any text into any language. Amazing.

What problems with AI should I know about?

As incredible as this technology is, it has a lot of flaws, and many of these will count against you if you don’t fix them before turning your paper in. If you do the simplest thing—paste in the prompt, copy the result, and turn that in—the result will be a bad paper that probably won’t get a passing grade. Use AI if you want, but don’t rely too heavily on it.

Here are some things AI does badly:

  • Its writing style is grammatically correct but very bland. Human beings speak and write with style, we have personality and voice, but ChatGPT sounds like a dictionary. Good grammar is important, but so is personality.
  • It can’t think, understand, or create. It cannot, therefore, be insightful, thoughtful, or original, all things that are required in a good essay. You’ll have to add those qualities yourself.
  • It lies. I’ll say that again. It lies. If it can’t retrieve a fact or quote, it will make one up. This means there’s a real chance you’ll submit false information if you don’t check its work, which will count heavily against you. When quotes are required, find them yourself. If ChatGPT provides details and information, fact-check them.
  • The latest version’s database was locked in 2021, so it doesn’t have up-to-date information or sources. This may change at any time, but for now its info is stale. There’s a lot it doesn’t know about.
  • It goes to the internet for most of its information, but anything behind a paywall or on a private server is invisible to it. That includes a lot of the readings I’ll assign, so it won’t be able to find them to provide quotes and information. It can give you ideas, general background, and can check your work, but it can’t substitute for you doing actual thinking and researching.

Here’s one other thing to know: ChatGPT is a thief. Everything you put into it goes into the database to help “train” the AI. Whenever you use it, you are contributing to that training, and it keeps everything you paste in. This is why I don’t require you to use it: I won’t make you donate your original work to Open AI for them to make money from. But if you understand this and want to use it anyway, that’s fine with me.

Are there resources available to help me learn to use AI effectively?

Yes, lots. Here are a couple I’ve found especially helpful. I’ll add more as I find them.

  1. “How you should—and shouldn’t—use ChatGPT as a student.”

This is a very handy guide produced for college students in Australia about what works and doesn’t work about AI. It’s organized into “Do’s” and “Don’ts.”

2. Charlie Chang, “ChatGPT Tutorial: How to Use ChatGPT for Beginners 2023.