We live in this incredible and complex moment where artificial intelligence is changing our lives at every moment. I am academically interested in this and committed to helping you to consider this critically/creatively as well. I see our current iteration of generative AI as a copilot to our academic pursuits. There are limitations, and if you fully trust it, it will steer you wrong. However, it’s incredibly useful to aid your learning and help you to develop and refine your ideas and work.
Key Point: You may use generative AI tools as a copilot. However, do not use it to outsource your intellectual work in this course.
Some bad use examples:
- Outsourcing your discussion posts to ChatGPT
- Copying and pasting code and formulas without understanding what it does
- Asking ChatGPT to do your reflections for you
- Researching topics academically in place of robust research tools/processes - it will make up sources and attributions
- Outsourcing your explanation and analysis on your final project
Some great use examples:
- Ask it to explain something to you in a different way
- Ask it to flesh out an example of something in a context (e.g. what’s an example of a full join across two tables in SQL using real data)
- Generating initial outlines or ideas when you’re staring at a blinking cursor
- Generating dummy filler data for a data project where you’re practicing
- Asking basic definitions of features, functions, and concepts -- you might want to double check it but it can be helpful for this.
- Engage in a conversation over several iterations and get it to refine it.
Use it honestly and share your successes and failures with the class community. Include citations of how you used it and what you used where possible. I will model the same as well. I used it extensively in refining this most recent version of the course, and I am excited to talk more about its possibilities.