Ethics: Use and Misuse in the Academy
Misuse of AI, and how to avoid it.
- Misuse of an AI is a matter of context. What may be acceptable in one situation may not be in another. Therefore, always check your context, university guidelines, or course policies.
- Anytime you are attempting to pass off the work of the AI as your own, you are misusing the AI. Therefore, you should always identify what work was a collaboration with the AI and what was your own.
- You are responsible for the final product (paper, project, email, etc.), no matter how much was created using the AI. If the AI wrote any part of the work, you must edit and verify the work. You must edit, so that the work is in your words. You must verify what the AI wrote; Ai s are known for hallucinations, lying, and making up answers.
- Just as you always cite works by other people or acknowledge other authors in a group project, you must acknowledge the work of an AI. If not, then you are guilty of theft of intellectual property; claiming something as your own, when it isn't.
Use of AI, ways to collaborate with an AI
Person or Professional Uses
- Improve résumés or curriculum vitae - use it to fix wording, not create details
- Improve essays for grants or scholarships - use the AI to massage details and vocabulary to meet the needs of the scholarship or grantors.
Academic or Scholarly Uses
- Brainstorming of ideas or topics - if you're stuck or need more options, just ask
- Generate research questions on a topic - if you don't know what you ought to know, just ask
- List keywords or terms for study on a topic - in case you are missing some details, ask
- List of pros and cons for a topic - just like brainstorming, asking for more options
- Present a point of view on a topic, "how might .... understand..." - sometimes it is hard to see another point of view.
- Summarize an academic article - should not be used in place of reading the article, but as a preface to reading or as a check that you got the details
- Identify themes or patterns in an article, chapter, or essay - same as above
- Edit or "improve" some writing - a chance to improve a wording of a sentence or paragraph OR if you didn't have time to see the writing center
- A "conversation" partner for language learning - interactive tutor - ask the AI to have a conversation with you at your level in and the language desired
- A "conversation" partner for practicing therapy (pastoral counseling or physical therapy or ...) - ask the AI to pretend to be a patient with a given malady, then begin a therapy session
- A "conversation" partner for a student with social anxiety. They ask the AI to portray a professor that the student needs to talk to. This allows for practice for a difficult conversation; what most people do with inner speech.
- Virtual peer review - give the AI the paper instructions and the grading rubric and then ask it for comments on ways to improve your paper to match the instructions and rubric.
- Language learning tool - vocabulary and paradigms - ask the AI for grammar hints, vocabulary, and paradigms to help with learning the language
- Automated content creation - ask the AI for study guides or flashcards based on your topic
- Personal tutor - combined uses of 12, 13, and 14.
Uses in a University Library
- Event planning in the library
- Translator of articles and chapters for patrons in the library - with summaries and key points highlighted
- Use the AI to create abstract and metadata for digital items in archives and special collections
- Administrative or personal assistant
- Chatbot for the library
- Help with grant writing
- Help with computer coding
