Artificial Intelligence

As stated in our Academic Misconduct Policy (UWSP Chapter 14), we believe that academic honesty and integrity are fundamental to the mission of higher education and of the university of Wisconsin system. The university has a responsibility to promote academic honesty and integrity and to develop procedures to deal effectively with instances of academic dishonesty. Students are responsible for the honest completion and representation of their work, for the appropriate citation of sources, and for respect of others' academic endeavors.

Always check with your professor for their stance on the use of generative AI tools. 

This helpful flowchart from aiforeducation.io provides a quick snapshot of things to think about when considering use of AI for an assignment.  

Evaluating the Reliability and Authority of AI-generated text and media

• Who is the author? Could their view be biased in any way?
  • Text or images generated by AI tools have no human author, but they are trained on materials created by humans with human biases. Unlike humans, AI tools cannot reliably distinguish between biased material and unbiased material when using information to construct their responses.
• Who is the intended audience?
  • Generative AI tools can be used to generate content for any audience based on the user’s prompt.
• What is the intended purpose of the content?  Was it created to inform, to make money, to entertain?   
  • Generative AI tools can create convincing text and images that can be used to propagate many different ideas without being clear that the information or images could be false.
• Where was it published?  Was it in a scholarly publication, a website, or an organization page?
  • Generative AI has already been used to create content for websites and news outlets. Considering whether the source is scholarly, has a good reputation and a clear history of providing reliable information is useful for figuring out whether the information you find is useful or misleading.
• Does it provide sources for the information?
  • Articles, news outlets, and websites that provide sources could be an indicator of reliability.  Further assessing the sources by following the links and citations to verify the information will help confirm that the information you find is reliable. 

Limitations of AI: Hallucinations and Fake News

Generative AI natural language processing tools, language models, or chatbots like ChatGPT have been shown to hallucinate, or provide completely unsubstantiated information. Text generated by AI can also seem very confident, so it can be very difficult to ascertain what information generated by AI is trustworthy and what information is not. (To learn more, read about six fake cases created by ChatGPT in the Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca court case)

(Adapted from AI Literacy and Critical Thinking/Macalester College Library)

• Always confirm with your professor whether AI tools like ChatGPT are allowed for each assignment
• Always verify information sources generated by AI tools
  • AI has been known to generate false information and to cite non-existent sources
  • AI-generated text mines people's intellectual property without crediting them, which raises ethical concern
• Various citation styles differ in their recommendations for citing AI tools (APA recommends attributing authorship to AI, whereas MLA advises against it). However, regardless of the style, use of an AI tool must be cited or acknowledged in some way. 
• Some of this guidance may change and will be updated as recommendations evolve.