Understanding AI

AI is short for Artificial Intelligence, and it is a set of technologies that can help you with your studies, your experiments, and your work. It is meant to help you augment and improve the outputs that you input into its systems, without replacing your own work.

ChatGPT is a special type of AI that interprets the text you input and outputs responses to prompts that you write for it. Such as: “Write me a list of all the elements in order from lightest to heaviest.” ChatGPT is a poweful tool that does not replace you own work, but can help improve it, with careful, ethical use.

AI does not know everything, and is limted by the data sets that have been fed into it by its creators. The data it uses may not be continually updated, and may only have some recent data. AI like ChatGPT requres careful use to avoid getting inaccurate or nonsensical responses.

AI can provide personalized learning, with adaptive responses, explanations, and content that are worded to suit the user’s understanding. AI can provide instant feedback, accessible tutoring, and a customized learning pace for each user. AI is not meant to replace learning or teachers, but is meant to augment both.

AI and generative AI can help you come up with new ideas with simple prompts. Need help coming up with a name for your new business or a title for your latest poem? AI can help with that. AI can help you improve the quality of your papers, essays, and other creative assignments when used carefully and ethically.

By adhering to the standards of academic integrity, data privacy, and accounting for bias, you can learn to use AI like ChatGPT responsibly. Plagiarism is not tolerated under any circumstances in academia, and proper sourcing is still key. Be sure to think and create for yourself, and not become overly reliant on ChatGPT or any other AI tool.