Artificial Intelligence, A Student Guide

Before using ChatGPT or other generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, always make sure to check with your professor for each course to find out if you can use AI, and if so, what exactly is permitted for a specific assignment.

Edgewood College's Academic Honesty Policy specifically mentions AI (such as ChatGPT) in the section under Plagiarism.

If you are permitted to use ChatGPT or similar AI, be sure to:

• Evaluate the content/output carefully and critically. Content produced may contain incorrect or biased and therefore unreliable information. These tools may also infringe on your privacy (e.g., collecting data about you and sharing it), so use them with caution. Consider using more authoritative, reliable, and secure sources instead.
• Make sure to cite the information you use in the text and in the reference list. We also recommend adding an acknowledgement that you used AI.

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to machines, and especially computer systems, doing tasks with human-like intelligence. AI-enabled technologies are used in many different fields such as manufacturing, transportation, medicine, banking, surveillance, and entertainment. You encounter them in daily life in examples like Alexa, Siri, facial recognition on your phone, voice-to-text messaging and autocorrect, getting directions from Google Maps, booking rideshares through Uber, recommendations for movies to watch on Netflix, ads that pop up in Facebook or Instagram that are based on your search histories, online banking, and much more.

Video: What is AI?

OpenAI's ChatGPT is a type of generative AI, which means it uses algorithms and neural networks to learn patterns and relationships in data and generate new outputs based on that learning. Generative AI is a branch of artificial intelligence that can be used to create new content, such as text (e.g., a recipe, cover letter, poem, short story, summary, etc.), programming code, or artwork (e.g., mimicking a certain painter's style).

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language model that engages in conversational interactions and provides responses to a question based on chatbot style prompts. It is pretty good at creating natural sounding sentences, but it often fails at math and it frequently fabricates sources when asked to use citations.

ChatGPT is a web-based tool that can be used on a limited basis without an account. Some features may require you to create an account. Please note that according to OpenAI's Privacy Policy they "may share your personal information with third parties without further notice to you." It is currently free as part of a research preview, but OpenAI could later put it behind a paywall. OpenAI has already launched a $20/month subscription plan for ChatGPT.

Video: Open AI's ChatGPT Explained

This guide is published with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC BY-NC-SA) license. It is adapted from Artificial Intelligence by Brenda Smith from Thompson Rivers University Library, used under a CC BY-NC-SA license.